Created on 02-11-2008 at 00:00 AM
There’s something afoot with the Bayern substitutes’ bench: every player who sits on it seems to benefit. Bayern lead the way in the Bundesliga this season with six goals from super subs. The most recent beneficiary was Lukas Podolski, scorer of Bayern’s third in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Bielefeld. That’s the same Podolski of whom Uli Hoeneß complained: “He’s had two chances and not taken them,” after the Germany man deputised for Luca Toni to no avail.
Toni was still sidelined, but Podolski was left out of the starting line-up on Saturday. “I was surprised and upset,” he later admitted. Jürgen Klinsmann knew that would be the case. “We wanted to wind Lukas up a bit and see how he took it,” he revealed.
The wind-up was intended to light the player’s metaphorical blue touch paper – and it worked. Podolski exploded off the blocks after coming on for the second half, before laying on Franck Ribéry’s goal to make it 2-1, and then scoring himself from the spot.