Bayern's Goetze feels the Guardiola love after winning start

Bayern Munich's Mario Goetze, who has spent much of the past two seasons on the bench, is starting to feel some love from coach Pep Guardiola after scoring in their 3-0 win at Greece's Olympiakos in the Champions League.

Germany's World Cup winner had vented his frustration over his supporting role at the champions at the start of the season and had at the time refused to commit to Bayern, instantly raising speculation about his future at the club.

Urged by club bosses to stay on and fight for a starting spot, the 23-year-old, who scored the winner in the World Cup final last year, looks to have risen to the challenge, first scoring twice in Germany's win over Poland earlier this month and netting again on Wednesday.

"I love Mario Goetze," said Guardiola. "I have said it a million times and I will say it a million times. He is a super guy and a super character with a great attitude. Everything was easier after Mario's goal. He is a top player and has enormous quality."

Guardiola, however, had again left Goetze on the bench at the start and sent him on in the 79th minute before he scored Bayern's second goal and sealed their win a minute from the end. Thomas Mueller added a third goal with a stoppage time penalty.

When asked why he again used Goetze late in the game if he was such a good player, the coach said there was just a lot of quality in the Bayern squad.

"I feel for him but if I started with Goetze you would then ask my why I don't play Thomas Mueller or why I don't play Robert Lewandowski," he said.

"There is a lot of quality so I can understand why he may be disappointed but I want the very best for Mario and am here to help him."

Things will become even more difficult for Goetze when Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery return from injury, further limiting the options of the attacking midfielder who can equally well operate as a striker.

That role, however, has been take over this season by Mueller, who scored twice on Wednesday and has netted six times in four league games as well.

But with Guardiola looking for a first Champions League crown at Bayern in his third season in charge, instilling confidence in Goetze could prove a valuable asset this season.

Bayern next host Dinamo Zagreb, who beat Arsenal 2-1 in the other Group F match, on Sept. 29. 

Bayern Munich puzzle over Guardiola, Robben and Ribery

BERLIN, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- While Bayern Munich won their curtain raiser in this season' s Champions League at Greek champions Olympiacos Piraeus 3-0 (0-0) with a Thomas Mueller brace (30st goal in the Champions League) and a Mario Goetze strike, fans around the world are discussing the future of their favorite club and its protagonists.

It is not only the uncertainties surrounding Bayern coach Pep Guardiola that is keeping the fans' minds busy but also the future of Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben. Both missed Bayern' s Group F opener due to injury.

Replacing them this time was no problem. Bayern was in complete control despite failing to score in the first half and their problems with a strong Piraeus defense. Starting with a 3-4-3 system, Bayern dominated throughout and remained patient and fully deserved to wrap up their first three points by scoring three goals after half time.

"It was not an easy game as Piraeus is a strong side at home. Last year they have beaten teams like Manchester and Juventus. We had a hard time in the beginning, but managed to win in the end, which is a message too," Mueller said.

However a team like Piraeus isn' t the biggest challenge anyway for the Germans, who won their 12th Champions League opener. The coach and two key figures are the top topic right now. Some fans hope that when Guardiola decides to leave, it might at least have a positive effect on the team and club in that it unite them even more to serve up a happy end.

According to rumors, Bayern are working on the topic of a new coach with great intensity. So they won' t be helpless when the 44-year-old Spaniard announces his departure after three years, which is what most pundits are expecting. Guardiola keeps his future to himself and does not earn applause from everybody but Bayern' s officials are keeping silent because they want everybody to concentrate on the fourth consecutive German title and more importantly on the Champions League. To win the most important club competition is no less important for Guardiola himself as it would turn his era in Germany into an excellent one.

Only Bayern Munich legend Franz Beckenbauer has uttered any form of criticism. "You can' t shape a squad in accordance with his wishes and then he tells you at Christmas that he' s leaving," said the 1974 (as a player) and 1990 (as a coach) World Cup winner. "The best thing would be for Guardiola to announce that he is staying at Bayern. It would make things much easier," continued Beckenbauer sounding ironically optimistic without being able to deliver any new hard facts.

As things look like at the moment, the club' s management have accepted that Guardiola will set sail to new shores after this season, and until then, are happy about their coach' s intense ambitions to win the Champions League final in Milan in May 2016.

Former Bayern player Dietmar Hamann told the pay TV channel "sky" that Guardiola must be regarded as a special coach by Bayern. "They have been beaten badly twice in the Champions League. I don' t know if any other coach would have survived that. You can lose to Barca and Real but the naive way Bayern did was a shock to me," said Hamann.

If Guardiola leaves, his successor (and Bayern Munich) will not only have to deliver new titles but he will have to see in a new era or see out the last years of the present one. German media is already starting to talk about the end of the era for Franck Ribery (32) and Arjen Robben (31). Both had missed as well the semifinal last season against FC Barcelona (5-3 on aggregate).

In order not to be left "alone" again, Bayern' s bosses ironed out their error not to have a solution in place for the worst case and bought Brazilian Douglas Costa (Shakhtar Donetsk) and Frenchman Kingsley Coman (Juventus) to replace the aging stars down the flanks, should the two be unavailable.

"It is a general policy of the club to have quick men on the wings," said Bayern Director of Football Matthias Sammer. "We have to take care that we have a smooth transfer into the era after them," added Sammer.

How important Costa and Coman can be the duet showed in Piraeus. Over 45 percent of Bayern's attacks came over Costa and Coman delivered two assists.

The prognosis in Robben' s case is that he will be out of the game for a further three weeks. As for Ribery, Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said he is expecting the player to return by the end of 2015 at the latest. The French striker has been sidelined with an ankle injury since March 2015. Both Robben and Ribery have contracts until 2017 and are obviously raring to make a comeback.

Robben answered with a broad smile when asked about the end of the era of "Robbery" (Robben and Ribery). "Until we see the post-Robben era it will hopefully still take a while. It' s always a good idea to look ahead, to recognize the time when you start to wane. But I can assure you until then it will take a while in my case," said Robben. And Ribery told reporters: "When I' m fit again, I don' t have to be afraid of any new face in our squad."

Bastian Schweinsteiger – for Germany, for Man United and for himself – is out to restore order

Bastian Schweinsteiger found the journey to his 112th Germany cap unusual in many ways. His habit, over the last 11 years, had been to travel north to the German Federation’s meeting point in Frankfurt, sometimes by train from Bavaria. This time, he was crossing borders, going through passport control. It is still a novelty for the midfielder to think of himself as an overseas-based player.

There were compensations for the longer trip home, he joked to reporters ahead of Friday night’s Euro 2016 qualifier against Poland. “At least I didn’t have Thomas Muller sitting next to me, jabbering on,” Schweinsteiger smiled.

Muller is one of only four Bayern Munich players in the world champions’ latest squad, which seems a thin spread, given how heavily the dominant club team in the Bundesliga has influenced the rise of Germany’s “Nationalmannschaft” over the last five years.

Schweinsteiger left Bayern this summer, on an adventure which carried for him a degree of risk and, plainly, a sense of stimulation. He is now a Manchester United footballer, and one still young enough, at just turned 31, to look forward to a two or three period where he might galvanise the English club back to the sort of pre-eminence in England and Europe they used to enjoy.

Or, in effect make them once again the club who look like the nearest English mirror-image of well-supported, well-resourced, successful Bayern.

But he will have to adapt. He has already noted, in his four games so far for United, the “physical strength” of the English game, and that, unlike the Bundesliga, “the teams at the bottom of the Premier League table can take on and often beat the teams at the top”.

His reinvention as a Red will test his stamina, and examine some doubts cast lately about his endurance. Pep Guardiola, the Bayern head coach, answering a question recently about why Schweinsteiger, a pillar of that club as boy and man, had been allowed to leave and suggested his best days were behind him.

Yet Guardiola would understand Schweinsteiger’s appetite for something different after a one-club career. When Guardiola himself was in his early 30s, after growing up with and captaining Barcelona, he was invited to consider a switch to Old Trafford. He chose Italy instead.

Schweinsteiger could have done the same, granted himself more time on the ball perhaps, more pause. But part of the attraction was a chance to work with Louis van Gaal, the United manager and a major influence on the Germany skipper’s evolution.

It was Van Gaal who six years ago, looked at Schweinsteiger, who had emerged young at Bayern and with Germany as a feathery winger, and decided he needed a new role. He was not the best player the club then had at zipping down the flanks – Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben were – so Van Gaal tried him in central midfield.

The position would become second-nature to Schweinsteiger. He would establish himself as one of the sport’s true leaders, imposing authority, his eye for a pass and appetite for a tackle in the middle of the pitch.

Nobody in Manchester greeted the signing of Schweinsteiger as if he was Germany’s answer to Ryan Giggs – as a prodigy in Germany in the early 2000s, he had been more that sort of footballer – but with the hope he might be the nearest answer to what United have missed in the 10 years since Roy Keane left.

He has a big year ahead of him: To show he can tower in English football; to demonstrate that the aches, strains and muscle pulls that have hampered him over the last 12 months are not symptoms of decline, and, in France next summer, to maintain Germany’s status as No 1 in the international hierarchy.

Joachim Loew, the Germany head coach who named Schweinsteiger as skipper last year following the retirement of Philipp Lahm, acknowledges he needs some careful handling, tries not to call him up for too many friendlies, but stresses “we need him for the important matches”.

Friday night counts as one. Poland beat Germany in the reverse fixture, and potentially complicated the automatic qualification route. Schweinsteiger missed that fixture with injury, and wants order restored.

Manchester United labelled 'embarrassing' over Martial and De Gea deals

The club's transfer strategy has been questioned after they spent £36 million on Anthony Martial on deadline day and became embroiled in a dispute with Real Madrid over David de...

Former Arsenal defender Martin Keown has labelled Manchester United's deadline day dealings "embarrassing".

The club spent £36 million on 19-year-old Monaco forward Anthony Martial and then became embroiled in a dispute with Real Madrid after David de Gea's move to the Bernabeu fell through.

The episode unfolded on the back of United's 2-1 defeat to Swansea in the Premier League on Sunday and Keown believes it has cast the club in a bad light.

"It felt like United were rolling the dice on deadline day," he wrote in his column for the Daily Mail. "It is hard to imagine that kind of soap opera happening under Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill. It was embarrassing."

New signing Martial has been compared to Arsenal great Thierry Henry, but Keown - who played alongside the striker during his time at the club - said the move is a big risk.

"The signing of Anthony Martial is a huge gamble," he continued. "He has been compared to Thierry Henry and if he is half as good then he will be a decent player.

"Van Gaal likes a pacey ball-carrier — he had Arjen Robben at Bayern Munich and tried and failed to make Angel di Maria that man at United — and Martial fits the bill.

"He might even be the answer to their striker dilemma but it is still a big risk to take on an uncapped youngster."

Keown also offered his thoughts over the transfer saga involving De Gea - whose move to Madrid fell through after the necessary paperwork wasn't processed before the deadline.

"Banishing him to the reserves will have done nothing to encourage him to stay. The international break now means things can start to settle down but De Gea, who stayed professional throughout the saga, must surely play on his return," he added.

"You also wonder whether Van Gaal’s treatment of De Gea and fellow Spanish keeper Victor Valdes had any influence on why one-time target Pedro ended up at Chelsea.

"We do not see what happens in the dressing room but it is a concern when former players queue up to criticise Van Gaal’s ruthless treatment. Once a relationship is broken, there seems to be no going back."