A goal fest in Leverkusen featuring a hat-trick from World Cup winner Thomas Müller saw Bayern München reach the DFB-Pokal final for the 22nd time in the club’s history. The record cup winners beat Bayer Leverkusen 6-2 in the first of this season’s semi-finals and will be playing at Berlin’s Olympiastadion on the 19th May, against either 2011 winners Schalke or last year’s runners up Franfkurt, who play tomorrow at 20:45 CEST.
Two goals in the opening ten minutes from goal machine Robert Lewandowski, a second-half hat-trick from captain Thomas Müller plus one Thiago strike have kept Bayern München’s treble hopes alive. Furthermore, Bayern have now extended their unbeaten run away from home in the DFB Pokal to 26 games – their last cup defeat on the road dating back to 2009’s quarterfinal, incidentally, a 4-2 defeat to Bayer Leverkusen.
Dream start for Bayern
Things could hardly have started any better for Jupp Heynckes’ men in the sold-out BayArena – having beaten the Werkself 3-1 both at home and away in the Bundesliga this season, the Bavarians seemed to have everything under control once again. Martinez’s effort from the edge of the box after just two minutes was steered in by Lewandowski, who added another soon after to give Bayern a 2-0 lead inside ten minutes.
Just like in the quarterfinal clash with Werder Bremen, Heiko Herrlich’s Leverkusen apparently needed fifteen minutes and a couple of goals against them to wake up: Captain Lars Bender took full advantage of Bayern’s failure to clear a corner and headed in to make it 2-1.
Volland and Bellarabi denied an equaliser
Despite Bayern enjoying the majority of the possession, it was the hosts who looked the most dangerous after having pulled a goal back. Karim Bellarabi’s rocket from 25 yards would have brought them level, but Bayern’s talisman Sven Ulreich made an outstanding save to deny him.
After the restart, Leverkusen continued to press, but Sven Ulreich was there when it mattered, once to deny Volland, then again to keep out another Bellarabi effort, this time from close-range. Just moments after the two Leverkusen chances, Bayern restored their two-goal cushion with the team’s first attack of the half – Thomas Müller took down Thiago’s pass brilliantly and slotted it under Bernd Leno.
Provider of the third goal, Thiago delivered what was perhaps the killer blow with goal number four. Thomas Müller bagged a second just moments later, almost accidentally stealing the goal from Robben, but there was nothing accidental about his third – after Leon Bailey’s free-kick reduced the deficit to three, Thomas Müller stepped up to score the final goal of the day, making the final score 6-2.
