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Soaring Bayern lays down marker
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BAYERN Munich has been a Champions League title contender since the season start but Tuesday’s 4-0 win over Olympiakos which secured a spot in the knockout stage will act as a serious warning to any challengers, with the Germans in sensational form.
Bayern has scored a staggering 17 goals in four of it five Group F games — more than four per game — as it booked a spot in the round of 16 with a game to spare following its demolition of the Greek champion in Munich.
Three goals in the opening 20 minutes left Olympiakos dazed and Bayern rightfully dreaming of a sixth European crown, the first under coach Pep Guardiola.
Undefeated in the Bundesliga after 13 matches and with only one loss in all competitions this season, a defeat at Arsenal, club CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had only praise to offer for the German champion’s consistency.
“What we have been experiencing here in the past three or four years is just an outstanding level of football,” Rummenigge, a former striker in the 1970s and 80s, told reporters.
“There has been no single game in that period that we have not gone in with full concentration and focus. I don’t think at my time or the time of Franz Beckenbauer we had that kind of consistency over such a period of time,” he said.
Five-time European champion Bayern, which has reached at least the Champions League semifinal four times in the past four seasons, is stronger than last season with new signings Kingsley Coman and Douglas Costa in scintillating form and on target on Tuesday.
Arjen Robben limped off in the 33rd minute but the Dutchman, only recently back from injury, escaped any serious damage with the club saying his substitution was more of a precautionary measure.
“We now have the Champions League in the bag until February,” Guardiola told reporters. “I am very satisfied with the qualification. My players have a great mentality.”
With injured David Alaba, Juan Bernat, Franck Ribery, Thiago Alcantara and Mario Goetze all working on their own comebacks from injury, expect Guardiola’s team to be even stronger when the knockout stage gets under way in the new year with their relentless and lightning-quick attacking game an even more daunting challenge for their opponents.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, it was: Barcelona 6, AS Roma 1; and Bate Borisov 1, Bayer Leverkusen 1 (Group E); Maccabi Tel Aviv 0, Chelsea 4; and Porto 0, Dynamo Kiev 2 (Group G); Zenit St Petersburg 2, Valencia 0; and Lyon 1, Ghent 2 (Group H).
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