Line-ups are announced, and the players are taking the pitch. For FC Bayern:
Neuer
Lahm - Badstuber - Boateng - Rafinha
Schweinsteiger - Kroos
Ribery - Mueller - Robben
Gomez
For Wolfsburg:
Benaglio Russ - Lopez - Schaefer - Chris - Rodriguez
Hasebe - Traesch - Jiracek
Mandzukic - Dejageh
I'm trying to paste the chat box below - let me know if this fails to load:
[ Copy this | Start New | Full Size ]
* * * *
2-0 is the final, in favor of FC Bayern. A nice result, but long periods of stagnation and mediocre play. Defense played well for most of the match, but had a few break-downs - Lahm had a poor pass in the first half that led to a chance for Wolfsburg, and Boateng was forced into a cynical foul in the last 10 minutes after getting beat to the ball.
Now, VfL is a club that can make you work, and no one expected this to be an easy win. But our midfield wasn't taking over. We went for long periods of time without getting the ball into the final third. Kroos avoided making any mistakes, but he was absent for a lot of the match. Mueller had a chance that he blew when the ball glanced off the side of his foot. And Gomez has an awful miss when he had a bouncing ball in front of him and couldn't even make contact.
Gomez's goal has a nice finish, though - he headed the ball straight down, then corralled the rebound after Benaglio had already done his "dive to the side" move:
The late goal was a nice tap from Olic. ESPN Deportes said it was a Robben goal, we'll have to see who gets the credit. Nice lob, either way, though:
It will be interesting to see what happens the next few days. Uli and Christian seemed like they were not getting anyone new, but we'll see what happens after this match. If we're going to pick anyone up, we would have to start working the phones pretty much tonight.
Back with more later. At always, e-mail us or hit the twitter feed if you have comments, corrections, or you have a line on a new transfer rumor. Thanks for reading.