Lewandowski stunner hands Bayern last-gasp win at Freiburg
>> BERLIN: Robert Lewandowski’s 91stminute strike snatched victory for Bayern Munich in their 2-1 comeback win at Freiburg in sub-zero temperatures on Friday as the Bundesliga resumed after the winter break.
Lewandowski, last season’s top scorer in Germany, showed his class with two superb strikes at Freiburg’s sold-out Schwarzwald Stadion.
Having volleyed Bayern level in the first half, to cancel out Freiburg’s shock early lead, the Poland hot-shot chested the ball down, flicked it off his left foot and fired home the winner off his right.
The victory left Bayern six points clear of second-placed RB Leipzig, who were due to host Eintracht Frankfurt yesterday.
“It was a hard game, we didn’t have so many chances, so we have to be happy with the three points,” Lewandowski said.
“We had a bit of luck. We were a bit slow at the back, we tried everything and they defended well.
“You have to be patient in games like that and I am just glad we got the win. It’s not easy to play in temperatures like that.”
Bayern coach Carlo Ancelotti was impressed with his team’s character, not their performance.
“We played a good opponent, who invested a lot, but we simply didn’t play well,” said the Italian.
“What I did like was the will and the character the team showed, but we can’t be happy with the way we played, only with the result.”
Freiburg, who stunned Bayern with a shock 2-1 defeat when the sides last met at the Schwarzwald Stadion in May 2015, took an early lead on four minutes.
“Bayern had a lot of chances, but I am not annoyed,” said Freiburg coach Christian Streich, with his team eighth. “We have to pick up our points against other teams, the boys did well and very little wrong.”
The thermometer showed -6C (21.2F) in the stadium, but Freiburg were on fire in the opening exchanges.
Meanwhile striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang admitted he could leave Borussia Dortmund in the summer — but insisted he will never join their Bundesliga rivals Bayern Munich.
“I will never go to Bayern, that is for sure,” Aubameyang told new German sports daily FussballBild, which launched on Friday, while on Africa Cup of Nations duty with Gabon.
“That would be too hard for the Dortmund fans.
“It wouldn’t matter what they offer me, I would say ‘no’.
“Doing something like that doesn’t fit with my mentality, so Bayern is out.”
Aubameyang is t he German league’s top scorer so far this season with 16 goals in his 15 Bundesliga games and has a Dortmund contract until 2020.
However, he has repeatedly expressed his desire to eventually join Real Madrid, to keep a promise he made to his grandfather just before he died.
“You know, some players have ambitions, so they leave to see something else,” added the 27-year-old.
His flat refusal to join Bayern will come as a relief to Dortmund fans, who have seen Lewandowski, Mats Hummels and Mario Goetze, who later re-signed for Borussia, join the Munich giants in recent years.