After Bayern Munich allowed Bastian Schweinsteiger to join Manchester United, it was thought to cement the position of Xabi Alonso in the first-team quite strongly.
It has been a disappointing campaign for Bayern Munich despite their third consecutive German league title.
The team was knocked out of the German cup by archrivals Borussia Dortmund, while a bigger disappointment awaited them in the Champions League after a 5-3 aggregate loss at the hands of Guardiola’s former club Barcelona. After having won the Champions League crowned twice as a Barcelona boss, the Spaniard has been unable to repeat his achievements with the German club. He is widely contemplating an exit from Bayern next summer when his contract expires.
Napoli’s Gonzalo Higuain is rumoured to be in the radar of Pep Guardiola as the Spanish manager wants to bring Higuain to the Allianz Arena in the summer transfer window.
Higuain has scored 13 Serie A goals for Napoli in this season. These 13 league goals were converted from the 30 appearances that the Argentine forward has made and it seems to have been enough to attract the interest of Arsenal and Bayern.
Pep Guardiola should be a very happy and excited man as his team managed to secure a spot in the semi-finals of the DFB Pokal Cup but after his squad defeated Bayer Leverkusen in a penalty session, the Spanish manager did not appear to be happy as Guardiola talked to reporters and only said that the absence of Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery has limited the goal-scoring opportunities of his team as they aren’t able to score goals as fluently and consistently ever since those star players picked up injuries and haven’t been able to get in the pitch.
Bayern Munich might have failed to register a win playing versus Shakhtar Donetsk the other day at Arena Lviv, but, that has not put their Final Eight qualification in the Champions League in doubt by any means.
Playing the return leg at home, it’s almost a no brainer that they would beat Shakhtar and move ahead to face the big boys.
But, what Pep Guardiola would need is to ensure that his players turn up.
During that away leg in Ukraine, it appeared as if the Bayern players were not completely awake.
The 2014 Ballon d’Or was awarded to Cristiano Ronaldo a few days ago as the Portuguese star of Real Madrid was rewarded for all of his remarkable accomplishments which he made in the past 12 months. C.Ronaldo won his 3rdBallon d’Or award on a very convincing fashion after receiving more than the double the amount of votes that Messi and Neuer.
Despite Bayern Munich’s domination both in the domestic Premiership as well as in Europe, Pep Guardiola, their manager, is not satisfied.
The Spanish manager does not agree to those experts who say that Bayern is the strongest team in the world in club football.
According to Guardiola, the big loss that Bayern suffered at the hands of Real Madrid the previous season is a proof that they are not the best as yet.
Arjen Robben has been one of the best players at Bayern Munich over the last two years, but club president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge says that he has now reached the best form of his career in the last few months. Robben has been scoring goals for fun in the German Bundesliga. He helped the club win the league title for the third consecutive season, while also playing an important role in Netherlands finishing third in the World Cup 2014. Due to the fitness issues surrounding Robin van Persie, Robben was the key player for the Dutch team.
Karim Benzema has signed a new deal at Real Madrid, but, it’s believed he is not the most comfortable there especially with Javier Hernandez being brought in.
Over the last 4 seasons, Benzema has played regularly in the Liga for Madrid, but, this season, that might not turn out to be the case. He will have to compete with Hernandez.
Benzema was said to be feeling unsecured during the summer and there were talks of him moving to Bayern, but he ended all the speculations by accepting the extension offered by Madrid.
Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany says that it is time the Premier League club closed the gap on big clubs like Bayern Munich by doing well in the Champions League. City will once again face the Bavarians in the group stages of the Champions League. City manager Manuel Pellegrini has criticised the UEFA’s seeding system ahead of the match, as it will be the third time in the last three seasons that are familiar round of opposition will be meeting each other in the group stages. For this season, though, City have been handed a very tough draw with Roma and CSKA Moscow being the other group opponents.