So today Bayern took on Urawa in another pre-season friendly and I have to say that I am finally happy with their performance. I'm going to get this out of the way again, Mark as Captain makes me happy. I'm curious, he's been Captain for all of the pre-season games. The only time he hasn't been Captain is when he's been taken off the pitch. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come during the season. Well, I can hope right? Midfield was awesome. Ze Roberto is brilliant. He truly shines when given the opportunity. It's pretty easy to see why he decided not to retire.
Klose finally got a goal. Good for him. Podolski was fantastic. I wonder if this was his Luca Toni who show because point well taken. He was awarded man of the match and rightfully so. Rensing was quite impressive in goal. This must've been his 'I am ready to step up' performance. The first goal that Urawa scored was basically van Buyten's fault. He couldn't keep up that time. Defending wasn't great, but it was better. And, here we go two blogs in a row, but Lucio was great. I like that he isn't afraid to take the ball forward and when he has great control, like today, he can be very dangerous to the other team. Now, I'm going to turn back into the Angela that you all know and love and stop praising Lucio now. ;)
I thought it was a mediocre performance by Lahm. I'm not sure why, but he seemed a little off today. Christian Lell did a good job. Sometimes he showed a mini Lahm performance. The announcers speculated that this starting line would be the starting line against Hamburg and if that's the case we just might be in pretty good shape.
The Urawa fans... totally classy. They are the only fans that I've seen give a standing ovation for the opposing teams players leaving the pitch on substitution. They applauded the players and showed them a lot of love when they were coming off. The announcers mentioned that Bayern is popular in Japan so maybe that's part of it.
Overall, I was pretty pleased with the performance today. Hopefully it will continue.