Printable Page
01/24 13:50 CST Surprising Augsburg hands Bayern Munich first defeat in the
Bundesliga
Surprising Augsburg hands Bayern Munich first defeat in the Bundesliga
By CIARAN FAHEY
AP Sports Writer
BERLIN (AP) --- The best team in Germany is not necessarily the best in Bavaria.
Bayern Munich slumped to its first Bundesliga defeat of the season by 2-1 at
home to Bavarian rival Augsburg on Saturday, when Bayern star Michael Olise
struck the crossbar with the last kick of the game.
It's the first time Bayern has failed to gather at least a point in the league
since March 8 in a 3-2 defeat at home to Bochum.
"I wouldn't say the defeat was absolutely deserved. That might be too much but
it also wouldn't have been deserved if we had won," Bayern midfielder Joshua
Kimmich said. "So in a way, it's acceptable, even though it's extremely
annoying for us to have lost a Bundesliga match. The crucial thing will be our
reaction to it."
Augsburg ended Bayern's record 53-game unbeaten run in the Bundesliga in April
2014, and on Saturday the same club also ended Bayern's next longest unbeaten
run at 27 games.
With 50 points and a goal difference of plus-57, Bayern had already made the
best ever start to the Bundesliga after 18 rounds.
Augsburg, only three points from the relegation zone before the match, hadn't
won a game since early December. And Manuel Baum's team had to come from behind
in Munich after Hiroki Ito opened the scoring with a header to Olise's corner
in the 23rd minute.
"We spoke all week about we had to believe in ourselves because no one else
did, perhaps justifiably so," Augsburg midfielder Robin Fellhauer said. "We
thought of a plan and it actually worked. We wanted to be well positioned, not
allow much, have a bit of luck now and then, and then keep making moves
forward."
Bayern missed further good chances and the first half ended with Fellhauer
striking the crossbar for Augsburg.
The visitors pushed hard for an equalizer in the second half and Arthur Chaves
duly got it with the back of his head to a corner that Bayern goalkeeper Jonas
Urbig failed to reach in the 75th.
Han-Noah Massengo scored what proved to be the winner six minutes later when
Dimitrios Giannoulis surged down the left and crossed into the middle to pick
him out.
"Unbelievable. There's still a bit of disbelief in the locker room because
nobody really knows what just happened and that we actually did it," Fellhauer
said.
Dortmund chips at Bayern's lead Borussia Dortmund capitalized on Bayern's loss with a 3-0 win at Union Berlin that cut the leader's comfortable advantage to eight points with 15 rounds remaining. Emre Can tucked away an early penalty, Nico Schlotterbech headed the second goal from a corner early in the second half, and Maximilian Beier sealed the win late with a low shot inside the far post. Another three conceded Eintracht Frankfurt's habit of conceding three goals continued in a 3-1 loss at home to high-flying Hoffenheim. Frankfurt, which fired coach Dino Toppmller last weekend, has conceded three goals in all five games it has played in 2026. Vzquez off the mark Former Real Madrid star Lucas Vzquez scored his first goal for Leverkusen to prevail 1-0 over Werder Bremen. It snapped Leverkusen's three-game losing streak across all competitions. Leipzig won at relegation-threatened Heidenheim 3-0, and Mainz's improvement under new coach Urs Fischer continued in beating Wolfsburg 3-1. ___ AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer |
