Bayern Munich comfortably down Hertha BSC, win 3-0

Carlo Ancelotti started this midweek clash by fielding the oldest Bayern lineup since 2008 while Hertha BSC came into the Allianz Arena without one of their top players in Vladimir Darida. Both teams would be in for a rough match as pitch conditions were, to put it mildly, less than ideal. Luckily for Bayern that was the roughest part of the evening as they sailed to a 3-0 win.

Things got off to an exciting start as Bayern had two golden opportunities to score within the opening five minutes on close range shots from Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Muller. Bayern would keep up the pressure early on and eventually cracked Hertha's defense when Franck Ribery showed off his incredible ball skills by managing to dribble past three defenders inside a space relatively the size of a phone booth and having the presence of mind to aim his shot low and away from the keeper to open the scoring for Bayern.

The first half would remain much of the same with Bayern controlling possession and dominating the midfield while generating a few more scoring chances. Hertha woke up for a bit at the start of the second half, winning possession battles in the midfield while Bayern came out of the locker room looking a little sluggish. A double switch from Hertha manager Pai Dardai nearly paid off immediately as Julian Schieber and Valentin Stocker came on with Stocker getting a quality shot on goal inducing a diving save from Manuel Neuer that very nearly tied the game.

Thiago Alcantara, however, would put this game out of reach in the 69th minute after capitalizing on a really odd sequence of events. Lewandowski had a goal waived offsides and while Hertha was trying to get cute by playing the ball out of their own end, Thiago walked in unseen and worked the ball free from Allan, the young 19 year old midfielder on loan from Liverpool. After being left one on one with the keeper, he calmly put it away and broke the game wide open. Arjen Robben, making his first Bundesliga appearance of the year, would score again not five minutes later.

Midweek clashes are never an easy task, especially with another league coming up this Saturday in Hamburg, but Bayern persevered through rough field conditions against a quality side in Hertha. They capitalized on a few mistakes and made their opponents pay which is exactly what great teams do in such conditions.