Bayern München 6-VfL Wolfsburg 1 Super Mario humiliates Wolfsburg as Bayern progress POTW #4

This week the Performance Of The Week award goes to Bayern München after they destroyed Vfl Wolfsburg 6-1, with Mario Gómez scoring a 6 minute hat trick after coming off the bench. Bayern Munich are often called FC Hollywood due to their dominance of German football. They showed why they have earned the moniker on Tuesday night. Bayern’s dominance of German football is further reflected by the fact that they have won the German cup 15 times.

Bayern started the scoring with a typically fast counter-attack. Xherdan Shaqiri, who arrived from FC Basel in the summer, slid a ball inside Rodriguez the left back to Arjen Robben. Robben found Mario Mandžukić in the centre with a low right footed ball. With just 17 minutes gone, the Croat smashed the ball emphatically into the roof of the net, seeming to injure himself in the process after catching Alexander Madlung on the follow through. Fortunately for Bayern he recovered. Wolfsburg looked very vulnerable on the break making it look like Wolfsburg were in for a battering.

With Bayern’s threat on the break remaining, another goal was bound to come: the elusive Shaqiri, who had a brilliant game, played in Robben, again, for his goal in the 35th minute. Robben’s faint right finish shot passed Diego Benaglio showed his class, despite him being a very frustrating and often greedy player at times. It was all caused by a misplaced pass from Madlung, which was miss controlled by Slobodan Medojevic and pounced upon by Shaqiri, who dribbled with great speed through the centre until finding Robben. Wolfsburg’s midfielder Diego showed his talent as half time loomed. The Brazilian received the ball from Vieirinha on the edge of the area, about 25 yards out, on what, for him, was the right hand side of the pitch. He took 3 touches, taking the ball to the edge of the area, before releasing an absolute thunderbolt into the top left hand corner passed the hapless Manuel Neuer. It was a fabulous goal which gave Wolfsburg some much needed hope for the second half.

Wolfsburg again conceded an early goal though, this time in the 50th minute. A free kick was taken quickly by Thomas Müller, who played it to Robben in the corner of the pitch. Robben played Shaqiri the ball at the edge of the area and Shaqiri summed up his performance with a fine left footed strike from the D. At this point in the game, it looked like Wolfsburg would keep the score line respectable at 3-1. Then Mario Gómez arrived…

Mandžukić, Gómez’s namesake, has been in brilliant form this season with 20 goals in 33 games. His form has meant that Gómez has sat on the bench for most of Bayern’s games. As Gómez proved tonight, he is too good to sit on the bench. Just 3 minutes after his introduction, Gómez got his first. Shaqiri played a pass to Bastian Schweinsteiger, who in turn played a beautiful pass back to Shaqiri, whose pace had carried him well inside the Wolfsburg defence. Shaqiri continued into the box and capitalised on a slip by Madlung to square for Gómez. Gómez couldn’t miss and tapped left footed in to the net. Bayern looked rampant and with ten minutes remaining anything was possible. Gómez proved this perfectly as he scored his second in the 83rd minute. Schweinsteiger made a brilliant turn and played a beautiful ball to Gomez, who finished low and hard into the bottom left hand corner, after taking a fantastic first touch. Schweinsteiger again combined with Gómez, assisting for a second time as Gómez completed a six minute hat trick.

The result sees Die Roten progress to the finals of the DFB Pokal, or German cup. They will face VfB Stuttgart, who beat SC Freiburg 2-1 in the other semi-final. Mario Gómez meanwhile scored one of the quickest hat tricks in history; maybe he will be available in the summer due to his lack of first team action. I’m sure he would thrive in the Premier League. Gómez does have a long way to go to beat the fastest hat trick ever: It took Tommy Ross just 90 seconds for Ross County to score a hat trick against Nairn County on 28th November 1964! Jupp Heynckes meanwhile looks set to quit football after a very successful season with Bayern. With the league already won, the German cup and Champions League are still very winnable competitions for Heynckes. Guardiola will have quite a challenge to beat Heynckes next season if Bayern can win both these cups!

Heynckes has been a true managerial great

A special mention must also go to Sunderland, who just missed out on this award. See my “Newcastle 0 Sunderland 3” match report for a detailed report on the biggest Sunderland Tyne-Wear victory in 34 years.