The players, the coaches and the crowd all left the Säbener Strasse happy on Friday. "A game is always better than training. It was good for the players who've not appeared much recently," said Louis van Gaal after a 2-0 victory over a Netherlands FA U-20 team. Hamit Altintop converted a 58th minute penalty and Luca Toni struck five minutes from time to seal the win for the Bundesliga club.
Van Gaal, without more than half his senior squad due to international commitments and injury, sent out a line-up comprising seven first-team players and four reserves. Other members of the FCB second team, plus U-19 player Christoph Knasmüllner, came on in the second half.
FCB's early dominance
Proceedings began at the Säbener Strasse with the players, match officials and a crowd numbering some 500 observing a minute's silence in memory of Germany keeper Robert Enke. Once play got underway, Bayern seized the initiative and created a number of chances. Breno (16) and Christian Lell (36) missed the best of them, before a Stefan Rieß lob rebounded from the crossbar (31).
The Dutch visitors spent the early stages on the defensive, but showed flashes of their undoubted talent in occasional forays forward. Michael Rensing dealt comfortably with a handful of long-range shots, but the FCB keeper was called into more serious action towards the end of the first period, as Lars Hutten (43) and Alexander Buttner (45) took aim from within the penalty area.
Toni has goal disallowed
Munich upped the tempo after the restart and again came close to opening the scoring, only for visiting keeper Eloy Room to save well from Toni (47) and Altintop (53). The big Italian had the ball in the net on 52 minutes, but the effort was ruled out for handball. Bayern finally broke the deadlock after 58 minutes when Kevin van Diermen fouled Toni in the penalty area, Altintop stepping up to bury the spot-kick and hand his side the lead.
Altintop and Toni both spurned good opportunities to increase the advantage, before Munich eased back a shade and the Dutch side adopted a more adventurous approach. Rensing made three excellent saves to preserve his team's lead, before Breno cleared off the line with nine minutes to go.
Weekend off
Toni finally wrapped up the victory with a classic striker's second in the 85th minute, the Bayern hitman shaking off a defender in the box before firing past the keeper. "They were good opponents," Van Gaal commented, going on to award his players the weekend off.
Match stats:
Bayern: Rensing - Lell, Schütz, Breno, Rohracker (Haas 46) - Altintop (Knasmüllner 75), Rieß, Ottl, Sikorski (Sene 46) - Baumjohann - Toni
Netherlands U-20: Mulder (Room 46) - Heerkens, Van Diermen (Lachman 72), Ter Horst, Van Aanholt - Maguire (Bannink 46), Hutten, Blind - Buttner (Duarte 72), Benschop, Godee (Weijl 46)
Goals: 1-0 Altintop (58, pen), 2-0 Toni (85)
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