Football notebook: Pep Guardiola is pleased with Bayern Munich’s dominance

Roma player feud is no big deal; Juventus is upset by lowly Parma; draw will do for Celtic in the Scottish Premiership.

Jose Mauri and Zouhair Feddal of Parma celebrate a victory at the end of the Serie A match against Juventus at Stadio Ennio Tardini on April 11, 2015 in Parma, Italy. Marco Luzzani/Getty Images

Robert Lewandowski scored twice as injury-hit Bayern Munich romped to a 3-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt to warm-up for their Uefa Champions League quarter-final at Porto.

With second-place Wolfsburg at Hamburg in the late game, Bundesliga leaders Bayern took the chance to go 13 points clear, despite having 14 fit players according to coach Pep Guardiola.

Lewandowski, the league’s top scorer last season, added two to his tally to leave him with 16 goals for the season and third in the current rankings, while Thomas Muller also scored.

Frankfurt were missing the league’s top scorer in the injured Alexander Meier, who has 19 goals in 26 matches.

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“I’m proud of the lads. We played well in Leverkusen and three days later played one of the best attacking sides in the league,” said Guardiola, who called their injury list “critical”. “We dominated the game and played well, which pleased me.”

Centre-back Medhi Benatia, who has a groin injury, joined Bastian Schweinsteiger, left-back David Alaba, and wingers Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben as just some of the stars on Bayern’s injured list.

Guardiola also made Bundesliga history by naming four Spain internationals in his starting line-up in Pepe Reina, Xabi Alonso, Thiago Alcantara and Juan Bernat.

Wolfsburg closed the gap later in the day with a 2-0 win at Hamburg and third-placed Borussia Monchengladbach picked up their fourth straight league win with an impressive 3-1 victory over Borussia Dortmund.

Meanwhile, bottom side Stuttgart must show “a killer instinct” today in the race to avoid their first relegation for 40 years, their Germany defender Anthony Rudiger said.

Stuttgart host Werder Bremen with one league win in 11 games. They are five points from safety with seven games to go. The 2007 German champions are bidding to avoid their first relegation since 1975 but are enduring the worst season in the club’s history.

After four months out with a knee injury, Rudiger, 22, who has five caps for Germany, is ready to help resume his side’s battle to stay in Germany’s top flight.

“Good isn’t enough. We need to run until there is nothing more left. We need to show some (heart), we need the killer instinct,” he said. “We need more courage and more aggression.”

Roma

Recent disagreements between Roma’s players and their supporters were just a “lovers’ tiff”, coach Rudi Garcia said on Saturday.

Roma’s players avoided celebrating their winning goal against Napoli last week near the hardcore fans in the Curva Sud (South Curve), apparently because they were unhappy with recent criticism of their performances. But Garcia he was confident that there was no long-term damage to the relationship.

“When two sides love each other, they can have disagreements. Of course, we all want to see players playing with character, that’s normal,” he said. “It means there’s life and love felt between the players and the fans.”

Roma, second in Serie A, won only one out of 10 league games in a recent run, allowing leaders Juventus to establish a 14-point lead at the top. Since then, they have staged a mini-revival with 1-0 wins over Cesena and Napoli. Garcia, whose side visit Torino on Sunday, also criticised Serie A’s disciplinary system, where decisions are made less than 24 hours after each round of matches has finished.

“I’d just like to point out one thing: in the Italian sports justice system, there’s one man ruling on all the events of the previous weekend,” he said. “In other countries, there’s a panel who discuss things. I think that’s an area where we could improve.”

Bayer Leverkusen

Bayer Leverkusen are considering terminating defender Emir Spahic’s contract as the Bosnia international is being investigated by police for allegedly assaulting a club steward.

Spahic, 34, who is out injured, is accused of headbutting a steward during a stadium altercation following Bayer’s German Cup quarter-final defeat at home to Bayern Munich after a penalty shootout last Wednesday.

Spahic, who captained Bosnia and Herzegovina at the 2014 World Cup, is being investigated by state prosecutors on suspicion of aggravated assault. The Bosnia international has a year left on his contract, but his Leverkusen future hangs in the balance.

“I can only repeat, without wishing to anticipate anything, that we will announce a decision very soon, either Sunday or Monday,” Leverkusen’s director of sport Rudi Voeller told Sky Sports before Saturday’s league match against Mainz.

“He still has a contract and there are lawyers dealing with the matter. He is very sorry for the incident and we mustn’t allow our good recent performances to be ruined. Not by anybody.”

This is not the first time Spahic has been accused of violent behaviour, following an incident involving Leverkusen’s press spokesman in 2013.

Atalanta

Atalanta players interrupted a training session for around 10 minutes on Saturday to be lectured by fans who are furious at the team’s poor recent performances.

The players were taking part in an open training session at their Stadio Azzurri d’Italia when around 1,500 fans, who were watching from one of the stands, began protesting. The session was interrupted and a video posted on Gazzetta dello Sport’s website showed the players standing in line in front of the stand, listening to an angry rant by one of the fans’ leaders, named by the newspaper as Claudio Galimberti.

Other fans applauded as Galimberti vented his wrath at the players, who remained in front of the stand without flinching.

“We’re fed up with losing face,” Galimberti was reported to have said. “We do not want to see the opposition controlling the game on our pitch, we have become a home for other teams.”

Galimberti also told the players to act as “professionals” and that he did not want to see them in nightclubs. The Bergamo-based team, who host Sassuolo today, have dropped to 17th in the 20-team Serie A table, four points and one place clear of the relegation zone.

Juventus

Bankrupt, bottom-of-the-table Parma, whose players have not been paid all season, pulled off a stunning 1-0 victory over runaway Serie A leaders Juventus on Saturday.

Midfielder Jose Mauri, 18, scored on the hour as Juventus, 7-0 winners over Parma earlier in the season, suffered only their second league defeat of the campaign.

Even though the leaders rested several players ahead of their Uefa Champions League tie with Monaco on Tuesday, it was still a remarkable result for Parma, who have only been able to continue in the league thanks to a fund set up by the Italian football federation.

Juventus remained 14 points clear at the top and on course for a fourth successive title while Parma, who have had three points deducted for breaching financial regulations, are still five points adrift at the bottom.

Celtic

Celtic extended their lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership table to eight points with a 1-1 draw away to Inverness Caledonian Thistle on Saturday.

The game at the Caledonian Stadium was barely three minutes old when Leigh Griffiths fired an angled shot beyond Dean Brill to give Celtic a perfect start at the stadium that was the venue for manager Ronny Deila’s first Scottish domestic defeat in August last year.

However, Inverness needed just over a minute to haul themselves level as Edward Ofere fired home after the ball bobbled about in the Celtic box. The draw with third-placed Inverness extended Celtic’s unbeaten run to seven matches and stretched their lead over Aberdeen, who play Kilmarnock on Sunday, to eight points.

“I don’t think we were ready when we started. We were too late in the challenges and we were not quick enough on the ball, so we couldn’t create the chances we wanted,” Celtic manager Deila said.

“We are disappointed today, but we controlled play better in the second half and in the end we got a point, and that’s better than nothing.”

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