Gee what a crazy game last night. Bayern looked lethargic and tired
for long stretches. Then the 3-2 fell in a phase where both teams
had chances. Salzburg had to go for it if they want to keep their CL
chances alive. They also got tired. So then Sane played a very cool
stop and look, then float a Robben like shot from right to left into the
top corner, and it was 4-2 and essentially over. Then we scored two
more, like against Barcelona. Hard to say if we really won this game
with strength, or just picked up the pieces. Have to mention a bit of
luck though. The pass to Lewandowski for the second goal (shot or hard
pass from near the end-line from Mueller into the center, bounced off a defender and went in), was very close to offside which is how Lewa tends
to lurk. But it was close enough to be ruled equal-height despite one
of the Sky commentators (Owomoyela) going on about how he thought it was offside. Those calls can easily go against you. But there were two
penalty decisions. At first, on what looked clear, the ref said no
penalty, but then he gave the second. He was a bit inconsistent also on
what was a foul and what was a card. It hit both teams though, so there
you are. Salzburg showed everyone else how to play Bayern, but of
course in order to do that you have to be good at backward transition
yourself. Finally becoming good at that, after all these years, is
decisive to how Bayern sprung up and won everything last year.

The other game I saw the goals from involved another team playing like
us who frankly did not have a backward transition game. That was
Atalanta, who gave up five fine goals to Liverpool, three from Jota, and
one each from Salah and Sane. Liverpool also made a statement, and for
my money they have to be considered at least as much of a "favourite" as
we are if not more so.

PS heard on the fan talk: the Borussia Moenchengladbach goals against
Shachtar Donetzk... one of the commentators they had is a real BMG fan,
and he was over the moon and behind it as well :-) 6-0 and now BMG have
much improved chances to advance.

--
ciao, Bruce
--- SBBSecho 3.06-Win32
* Origin: SportNet Gateway Site (24:150/2)