Rampant Reds cruise into quarter-finals

DFB Cup holders Bayern cruised into the quarter-finals of this season’s competition with an emphatic and utterly convincing 5-1 triumph over outclassed south German rivals Stuttgart on Tuesday.

A 55,500 full house at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Stuttgart saw Bastian Schweinsteiger and Franck Ribery fire FCB into a two-goal lead with barely quarter of an hour played, although Ribery blotted his copybook midway through the first half with an over-casual effort from the penalty spot. The miss was to prove of little consequence, as the visitors still turned round three goals to the good courtesy of Luca Toni’s strike two minutes from the interval.

The exhibition continued in the second half, Schweinsteiger adding a fourth from the spot ten minutes after the restart, before Ze Roberto made it 5-0 with half an hour still to play. Mario Gomez pulled one back six minutes from time, but the goal will have been scant consolation to the home side on an evening when the cup holders were superior in every department.

The men from Munich will now be brimming with confidence when they travel to Hamburg on Friday for the fixture officially marking the resumption of Bundesliga hostilities after the mid-season break.

For the opening competitive match of the new year, Jürgen Klinsmann’s starting line-up had the feel of a side likely to be considered first choice for at least the next month or two. With Massimo Oddo suspended for the next three league games, Christian Lell took over at right-back, with Schweinsteiger preferred to Hamit Altintop ahead of him on the same flank.

After a nervy first ten minutes from both sides, Bayern hit their stride as if there had been no six-and-a-half week winter break, utterly dominating their bewildered opponents through to half-time.

Martin Demichelis gave notice of what was to come with a free header over the bar, before Schweinsteiger capitalised on sloppy work by VfB left-back Arthur Boka, arrowing a cross-shot beyond home keeper Jens Lehmann to open the scoring with 14 minutes on the clock.

The holders made it two goals in as many minutes when Ribery released Ze Roberto into space on the left, the Frenchman himself netting a tap-in from Toni’s knock-down with the Stuttgart defence nowhere to be seen.

It should have been three on 21 minutes after FIFA referee Herbert Fandel adjudged Boka’s effort to close down Miro Klose as deliberate handball in the box, but Lehmann double-guessed Ribery’s intention to chip in from the penalty spot, the big keeper standing his ground and making the simplest of catches.

Ze fired over and Klose’s shot was blocked as FCB continued to dominate at will, before Ribery atoned for his slack penalty effort before the break with a fine run and lay-off for Toni to slot home and make it three two minutes from half-time.

Both Klose and Stuttgart sub Ciprian Marica had the ball in the net either side of the break, but the strikers had each strayed offside. Michael Rensing finally had work to do as VfB briefly rallied after the restart, the Munich shot-stopper twice dealing capably with efforts from much-travelled Czech midfielder Jan Simak.

The home side’s faint hopes of a comeback were finally buried ten minutes after half-time, Schweinsteiger making it 4-0 with a confident penalty after Lehmann bundled Ze to the ground, and although Germany striker Mario Gomez cannoned a looping shot off Rensing’s crossbar, Bayern raced up the other end and added a fifth with more than a half-hour still to play, Ze keeping his cool in a one-on-one with Lehmann after Toni’s slide-rule pass behind the VfB defence.

With the game well and truly over as a contest, sub Landon Donovan came closest to making it half-a-dozen for FCB in an easy-paced final 30 minutes, but after Marica put another shot against the bar, the honour of a Stuttgart goal fell to Gomez six minutes from time. The late consolation was ultimately an irrelevance as rampant Bayern threw down the gauntlet to their domestic and European rivals right at the start of the second half of the 2008-9 campaign.

Live match report for fcbayern.de by Chris Hamley