Bayern play out eight-goal friendly thriller with Salzburg

FC Bayern drew 4-4 with Red Bull Salzburg in their only winter friendly before returning to Bundesliga action. Barely 24 hours after arriving back from the team’s training camp in Doha, and with a week to go before the first competitive fixture of 2023, Julian Nagelsmann named a strong line-up of Sven Ulreich, Josip Stanisic, Benjamin Pavard, Dayot Upamecano, Alphonso Davies, Joshua Kimmich, Ryan Gravenberch, Leroy Sane, Jamal Musiala, Serge Gnabry and captain Thomas Müller.

It took the hosts only nine minutes to break through at the FC Bayern Campus as Sane picked out the far top corner on his left foot from right of centre. The champions of Germany were the dominant side against their Austrian counterparts, but the visitors were level after 17 minutes when Sekou Koita clinically rounded off a counter-attack. Bayern continued to press and the chances piled up. Kimmich and Sane both saw efforts parried away by goalkeeper Philipp Köhn as the score remained level after the first 45 minutes.

Salzburg changed their entire outfield team for the start of the second half and quickly went ahead through Karim Konate after the initial effort from a corner was flicked against the crossbar. It was 3-1 just three minutes later when Noah Okafor picked out the top corner from the edge of the box. As he’d suggested, Nagelsmann did ring the changes on the hour mark, with only Kimmich remaining on the field throughout. It also brought about a change of momentum as youngster Arijon Ibrahimovic fired in from 20 yards to reduce the deficit. Kingsley Coman then swept home the equaliser from a Mathys Tel cutback as Bayern produced their own quickfire double.

Tel and Marcel Sabitzer both came close to a winner but were denied by Köhn in the final 10 minutes. Coman struck the woodwork with a rasping effort from 25 yards before Tel put Bayern up once again, spinning his man to the left of goal and smashing inside the near post with two minutes remaining. However, Salzburg levelled only seconds later through Okafor to round off a highly entertaining friendly.

Bayern will have a week of training at Säbener Straße before the Bundesliga leaders resume their league campaign away at Leipzig on Friday, 20 January at 20:30 CET.