MY ACCOUNT
Leroy Sane broke Arminia Bielefeld’s resolve as Bayern Munich battled to a 1-0 win at Allianz Arena to reclaim top spot from Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga.
Dortmund’s earlier 3-1 win at Wolfsburg saw them climb to the summit, but Bayern responded in Saturday’s late kick-off to move a point clear ahead of next week’s Klassiker.
After failing to forge a breakthrough in the first half of a league game for just the second time this term, Sane finally found the net for Bayern with 71 minutes played.
That was Bayern’s 102nd league goal this calendar year – a Bundesliga record – and proved enough to help the hosts bounce back from last week’s 2-1 loss at Augsburg.
Reigning champions Bayern had 11 attempts in the first half, six of those on target, without finding a way past inspired Arminia goalkeeper Stefan Ortega.
The visiting keeper did well to keep out a couple of Alphonso Davies efforts and a volley from Thomas Muller, who earlier had a header cleared off the line by Andres Andrade.
Sane continued Bayern’s wastefulness by missing two big chances early in the second half, but the Germany international eventually provided the opener.
Collecting a pass from Muller outside the box, Sane whipped a shot past Ortega to give Bayern the goal they craved.
Arminia held Bayern 3-3 in their previous meeting in February, but the strugglers could not find a response this time and were fortunate not to concede a second when Serge Gnabry’s shot came back out off the crossbar late on.
What does it mean? Bayern top for Klassiker
This was a much-needed return to winning ways in the league for Bayern, who now have a one-point cushion on Dortmund heading into their mouth-watering clash.
Bayern had lost their past two games against sides from the bottom half of the table – as many as in their previous 101 such encounters – and were given a real scare by Arminia.
Julian Nagelsmann’s side’s pressure eventually told, though, as they scored against Arminia for a 16th home league game running and kept alive their run of scoring in every Bundesliga match since February 2020.
Sane’s history-making strike
Bayern’s winning strike was their 102nd goal of 2021, surpassing Cologne’s record from 1977 for the most Bundesliga goals in a calendar year.
To put their goal-scoring feat into some perspective, Atalanta are the next-highest scorers in Europe’s top five leagues with 90 goals in 2021.
Lewandowski kept quiet
Prolific striker Lewandowski has been responsible for an incredible 38 of those Bayern league goals this year, going some way to highlighting why he is the favourite to win his first Ballon d’Or on Monday.
However, the Poland international missed some presentable opportunities against Arminia, hitting the target from just one of his four attempts for a Bayern side who ended the match with an expected goals return of 2.73.
What’s next?
Bayern have that huge showdown with Dortmund to come in a week’s time, while Arminia are at home to Cologne.
