Bayern Munich captures 8th straight Bundesliga title

BREMEN, GERMANY » For the eighth straight year, Bayern Munich’s players celebrated winning the Bundesliga title on Tuesday.

This celebration, though, was unlike any of the previous seven.

The players’ cheers echoed around an empty stadium after a 1-0 win at Werder Bremen secured the title with two rounds to go.

With no fans because of the pandemic, it was a subdued and strange display of emotions as the players put on commemorative T-shirts and waved to their absent supporters.

German media have dubbed the team the “Geister-Meister” — the ghost champions.

“Celebrating without the fans is a bit complicated,” Lewandowski said. “The atmosphere is missing and something else, not the motivation, but the passion from the fans.”

Robert Lewandowski’s goal earned a hard-fought win over Werder which became a battle after Alphonso Davies was sent off in the 79th minute. If not for a late one-handed save by keeper Manuel Neuer, the celebrations would have had to wait.

Guardiola raises injury concerns ahead of restart

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is expecting “a lot of injuries” when the Premier League resumes after a 100-day shutdown and has no idea what to expect when his team plays Arsenal on Wednesday.

The top English clubs are resuming play after as little as three weeks of contact training following the lockdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

Guardiola described that as an “incredible lack of preparation,” with City’s only friendly being an inter-squad match at its training ground which was used as much to prepare players for the locker-room protocols as anything else.

“You ask me how is the team? I don’t know,” Guardiola said on a video call on Tuesday. “Tomorrow we will see the level of the team. … What we were worried is these three weeks, with incredible lack of preparation like other teams in the Premier League, is not like in Germany or Spain who had five or six weeks.”

Sounders midfielder Shipp retires after 7 MLS seasons

SEATTLE » Seattle Sounders midfielder Harry Shipp announced his retirement on Tuesday after seven seasons with three different Major League Soccer teams.

The 28-year-old started 41 of 64 matches played during his time with Seattle and scored 10 goals with seven assists.