FC Bayern delighted a 53,629 crowd at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte on Saturday evening with a deserved 4-1 victory over Inter Milan in the International Champions Cup. Julian Green was the hat-trick hero with three first-half goals, Franck Ribéry also contributing a 12th-minute strike. Mauro Icardi netted a consolation for the North Italians in the last minute.
Three days after the meeting with Inter’s city rivals AC, Carlo Ancelotti made five changes to his starting line-up, replacing Sven Ulreich, Holger Badstuber, Juan Bernat, Xabi Alonso and Philipp Lahm with Tom Starke, Nicolas Feldhahn, Fabian Benko, Milos Pantovic and Arturo Vidal, the Chile enforcer making a first appearance since his summer vacation.
The men from Munich made light of the hot and sultry conditions and dominated the contest from the off. Green came up just short of a Ribéry cross only 66 seconds after kick-off, but the US international was on hand to turn an Alaba centre into the far corner of the net after only seven minutes. Five minutes later Ribéry had the easiest of tasks to turn an excellent Benko lay-off into the empty net, doubling the lead after 12 minutes.
FCB continued to hold the upper hand and Rafinha struck the side-netting on 16 minutes, but it was Green who made it 3-0 on the half-hour with a neat shot into the far corner after a controlled counter-attack. The 21-year-old completed his hat-trick five minutes later with a close range finish from Rafinha’s cross to make the half-time score 4-0.
Ancelotti made four changes at the interval with further substitutions throughout the second period. The men from Milan also brought on new players as the second half proved a more evenly-matched affair. Geoffrey Kondogbia fired Inter’s first real chance goalwards on 64 minutes, and although David Alaba aimed just too high with three minutes left, Icardi netted the last goal of the game for the Italians in the 90th minute to make the final score 4-1 to the German champions.
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