German international striker Mario Gomez's return to form after three months out through injury continued on Wednesday as he scored in the 4-1 UEFA Champions League rout of BATE Borisov.
Gomez, who was scoring his 21st Champions League career goal, said afterwards he and his team-mates were determined to put the record straight and win this season's Champions League, after losing on penalties to Chelsea in last season's final and on their home ground to boot.
Having finished top of their group they can expect a relatively favourable draw for the last 16 when the draw is held later this month.
"We want to reach the final again. And of course win it this time," said 27-year-old Gomez.
"There are a lot of opponents that I would like to play against. But we cannot affect that and we will take whatever we can get. We’'ll just see what happens and then go as far as we can."
Gomez was part of a largely second string Bayern side - coach Jupp Heynckes made seven changes from the team that played in the Bundesliga last weekend - and another who shone was highly-rated Swiss international Xherdan Shaqiri.
"We wanted to have a good performance and the players who came in wanted to repay the coach for the trust they were given," said Shaqiri, who also got on the scoresheet. "It doesn’'t matter who plays. We have a good squad and every player is replaceable."
Bayern finished off an impressive week for German football as they combined with Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 in becoming the first trio of Bundesliga clubs to finish top of their respective Champions League groups.
"We deserved to be in first place. Of course the names in the group weren’'t as big as the Dortmund group (Real Madrid, Manchester City and Ajax)," said Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer. "But you still have to finish top of the group and we are proud of doing that."
While the ever canny Heynckes refused to say which of the eight group runners-up he would prefer to face, he was happy what first in the group had brought them.
"It’'s good that we have an away match first and then a home match. That will help," said Heynckes, who guided Real Madrid to Champions League glory in 1998.
The only cloud on Heynckes' horizon is filling the vacancy in central defence left by the long-term injury suffered by Holger Badstuber prior to the game and his replacement Jerome Boateng didn't do his long term prospects much good by being sent-off in the 50th minute.
-->
|
-->
|
Source: Fifa
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Have your say and leave a comment here! Thank you!