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Despite the fact that it ended in a relatively tame 1-0 position, the first half was pretty action-packed. Bayern GK Manuel Neuer had to look sharp, twice making good reaction saves. And Augsburg clearly didn't feel intimidated by Bayern, as they pushed forward repeatedly to threaten our goal.
On the other end, Bayern didn't dominate the midfield like we sometimes do; in fact, at times, this almost had the feel of a counter-attack strategy. It worked out OK, though, as Gomez scored in the 26th minute by getting his toe to a cross from short range, and Bayern has several other opportunities of our own. At one point, we had 3 shots that were inches away in the span of a few seconds. Or, rather, one shot that actually looked to maybe be a goal, and then two subsequent shots that were inches away. However you want to describe it, Bayern took a 1-0 lead into the half.
Here's the Gomez goal:
Things got even more interesting less than 10 minute after the restart. Ribery and Augsburg's Koo Ja-Cheol got tangled up in what looked like an unintentional groin shot, followed by Koo shoving Ribery to the face. Ribery, of course, responded with a slightly harder face shove of his own. Knowing how the officials often respond in these situations, the result was little surprise: a red for Ribery, and Bayern going down to 10 men.
But the boys continued to fight, with a double-substitution reinvigorating Bayern. Javi Martinez, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Anatolity Tymoschuk all three played together in the middle of the field, I believe for the first time ever, as Bayern went to something like a 4-3-1-1. And it was Shaqiri who secured the points for good with a sprint-and-finish move with less than 10 minute to go:
In other results, our gang's collective wisdom was proven once again: Kickers Offenbach pulled the upset, beating Fortuna D to move into the quarterfinals. Karslruhe, meanwhile, couldn't justify my faith (losing to SC Freiburg) and Schalke continued their slump with a loss to Mainz.
We'll be back with more later. As always, if you're going to post .gifs or pictures, please do so one at a time. Thanks for reading.