Bayern Munich won 7-6 on Penalties

This was the Final of the Audi Cup and was basically a home game for Bayern Munich, played as it was, at their Allianz Arena in front of pretty much their own fans but as pre-season friendlies go, it did at least have a bit of bite to it.

As expected, Bayern started out well and almost went ahead when a Gomez blast shuddered United’s crossbar but we coped with most of it quite well with what looked like an eight man defence at times!

Berbatov came closest to putting us ahead when an excellent overhead effort also came back off the woodwork.

The player who really seems to have enjoyed being so involved so far in this pre-season is Nani who was in the thick of just about everything United did here tonight. He still gets some things wrong and, on occasion, seems to overcook things (e.g. he will do a bit of trickery to beat the defender, get himself space for a cross but then stop and do it all over again) but he certainly seems to be responding well to any suggestions that this could be a make or break season for him.

He’s also showing a lot more strength and the nonsense dives and rolling around on the floor seem to be leaving his game.

I’m a big Berbatov fan and one of his staunchest supporters against those who haven’t been too impressed with him so far but even I didn’t like some of his body language on the pitch tonight. He’s not slow to let his disdain be known if any player does not do something exactly how he expected it to be done and Nani was the brunt of a few of his little tantrums tonight. (It reminded me of how Cantona sometimes used to treat Andy Cole all those years ago, actually).

Valencia got another 20-30 minutes on the pitch and whilst he didn’t have the same impact that he had yesterday, he showed one thing that Ronnie never showed us when an attacking move he had worked hard on broke down i.e. he didn’t kneel down and start praying to the heavens, he got straight back on his bike and got back into a defensive position – something his fellow midfielders will surely be heartened to see.

The game had its moments but all in all the two teams cancelled each other out and a draw was probably fair although Bayern Munich might disagree with that, and I wouldn’t argue if they did.

And so we had to go to penalties.

Sixteen were taken and thirteen were absolutely top-notch penalties. Edwin tried his best to put the Bayern players off with delaying tactics but I’m surprised he persevered with it because it clearly wasn’t working and, of the two keepers, the Bayern keeper performed the better almost saving on a couple of occasions and saving two whilst Van Der Sar only saved one and guessed wrong on every other occasion.

And so the inaugral Audi Cup went to the hosts Bayern Munich which, all things considered, was probably the diplomatic thing to do.

Penalties

Ryan Giggs 1-1 Alexander Baumjohann
Anderson 2-2 Edson Braafheid
Nani 3-3 Hamit Altintop
Patrice Evra 3-3 Danijel Pranjic
Wayne Rooney 4-4 Jose Ernesto Sosa
Darren Fletcher 5-5 Andreas Ottl
Paul Scholes 6-6 Holger Badstuber
Jonathan Evans 6-7 Daniel Van Buyten