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Friday marks the return of the world's greatest league. The Bundesliga begins the Rückrunde with Bayern Munich traveling north to take on Hamburger SV in the Friday night showdown. Following the FCB's ridiculous loss to Karlsruher SC in their only friendly of the winter break, how will the club respond in official league play?
Pep Guardiola is still without a full strength squad, but FC Bayern continues to inch closer and closer to making this dream a reality for the Catalan. The Bavarians will be without Medhi Benatia, Juan Bernat, Mario Götze, Rafinha, Franck Ribery, and Sven Ulreich with injuries. While Rafinha and Ulreich minor suffered injuries recently, the other four are closer than ever to returning.
Bayern opened the season in the first match against Hamburg. FCB put up four goals in a thirty four minute stretch during the second half to put the nail in the HSV coffin. The match was truly the coming out party for Douglas Costa, as the Brazilian was just too much for the overwhelmed Hamburg defense to deal with.
Once the lineups are released, this thread will be updated.
Location: Imtech Arena, Hamburg, Germany
Time: 8:30 pm local time, 2:30 pm ET
TV/Streaming: USA (Fox Sports 1 | HD, Fox Sports GO, Fox Soccer 2Go, GolTV), Canada (Sportsnet One, Sportsnet World Now), Germany (ARD Das Erste, Sky Bundesliga 1 | HD, Sky Go, TeleClub Sport Live), UK (BT Sport 2)
Full Listings: Other Countries
Hamburg
Müller - Ilicevic - Lasogga
Kacar - Holtby - Hunt
Diekmeier, Djourou, Cleber, Ostrzolek
Adler
Bench: Drobny, Sakai, Carolus, Jung, Porath, Rudnevs, Gregoritsch
Bayern Munich
Robert Lewandowski
Kingsley Coman - Thomas Muller - Thiago Alcantara - Douglas Costa
Xabi Alonso
David Alaba - Holger Badstuber - Jerome Boateng - Philipp Lahm
Manuel Neuer
Bench: Tom Starke, Javi Martinez, Arjen Robben, Sebastian Rode, Arturo Vidal, Joshua Kimmich
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