Borussia Dortmund beat Bayern Munich to win German Super Cup

Borussia Dortmund took the German Super Cup for the second successive year with a 2-0 win over last season’s double winners, Bayern Munich.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang netted the goals for Dortmund to make sure the Super Cup remains the only domestic trophy still to elude Bayern coach Pep Guardiola.
Dortmund dominated the game from start to finish and, like a year ago when they triumphed 4-2, drew first blood ahead of the official start to the 2014/15 season.
To make matters worse for Bayern, they lost defender Javi Martínez to injury after half an hour, with the Spaniard stretchered off after a failed bicycle kick ended up awkwardly striking Marcel Schmelzer.
Bayern sports director Matthias Sammer told reporters there were fears it could be a cruciate ligament injury that could keep the player out for some time but the club has not yet announced the full extent of his injury.
When these two teams line up for their first Bundesliga fixture of the campaign, Dortmund’s starting XI is likely to bear more resemblance to the one that took to the field on Wednesday evening.
Dortmund coach Jürgen Klopp named practically his strongest team with Guardiola counting on only three of his World Cup winners – Manuel Neuer in goal, Thomas Müller in midfield and Jerome Boateng in defence.
Robert Lewandowski was lining up against his former team-mates, but he saw relatively little of the ball as the hosts attacked from the outset. Lukasz Piszczek’s shot from an angle was parried away by an increasingly busy Neuer in the 17th minute before the hosts took a deserved lead six minutes later.
Mkhitaryan led the ball through with authority before trying to thread a pass through into the path of Aubameyang. A block from David Alaba prevented the Gabon forward from getting in a shot, but the ball fell kindly for the Armenian, who flashed his shot unstoppably to the left of Neuer.
Dortmund’s attacks were unrelenting and Sebastian Kehl stung Neuer’s palms again before he and Jonas Hofmann tested the man voted the best goalkeeper at the World Cup. At the other end, Mitchell Langerak did not want to be outdone as he denied Lewandowski in typical Neuer style, blocking the Pole’s shot with his upper body in the very first minute of the second half.
Mario Götze, who preceded Lewandowski in moving from Dortmund to Munich by a year, was greeted by a chorus of whistles when he took to the field – but jeers turned to cheers within minutes when Aubameyang doubled Dortmund’s lead.
He exchanged passes with Piszczek before moving into the centre to meet the Pole’s cross ahead of Boateng and head unstoppably past Neuer, producing a Spiderman mask to celebrate his goal in the guise of his nickname.
Dortmund continued to look the more threatening but a third goal was not needed, with Ciro Immobile guilty of missing the most chances on his competitive debut for the club following his summer switch from Torino.
Credit: The Guardian