After five pre-season friendly matches, FC Bayern begin the new 2019/20 campaign for real in Saturday’s Supercup (follow the match from 20:30 CEST with our Live Updates on fcbayern.com). "I'm really looking forward to the game," Leon Goretzka declared after the Audi Cup on Wednesday, already champing at the bit prior to the showdown with Borussia Dortmund. The clash with FCB’s biggest domestic rivals is the first competitive fixture of the new season – and there is a trophy at stake to boot.
"I think it's a beautiful cup, an important cup and we want to win it," said boss Niko Kovac, underlining the significance of the contest. Last year the Bavarians claimed the trophy in Frankfurt, and are aiming to retain their title this year. However, the coach is aware that this will not be easy, given the relatively early stage of preparations for the new campaign. "Dortmund have bought well and it’ll be a hard-fought contest. Not everything will work out the way you think it will, you have to take that into consideration. But it’ll certainly be a good game," the 47-year-old said.
Coman on board - Gnabry missing
Kovac has been completely satisfied with pre-season so far: "We had good warm-up matches with good results, but above all I liked the way the team came together on the pitch. We’ve set a standard and want to improve it further." The game at the weekend should also help in this respect.
In terms of his line-up, the coach can probably count on Kingsley Coman: the winger trained again on Friday after bruising a knee against Tottenham in the Audi Cup final. However, Javi Martínez (knee) and Serge Gnabry (muscle pain) did not travel to Dortmund. Kovac is unwilling to take any risks with Gnabry: "Serge feels better, but we won't take him with us. He hasn't had a consistent training load yet." The same is true for new signing Lucas Hernández, who will travel to the Tegernsee training camp next Tuesday and take up the squad programme there. Youngsters Ryan Johansson and Sarpreet Singh remain in the squad for now.
Sell-out crowd
Dortmund are also likely to be without two of their new arrivals. Julian Brandt is definitely out with adductor problems and there is a question mark over Thorgan Hazard (ankle). In addition, regular keeper Roman Bürki (shin) sits out the match. Nevertheless, BVB are brimming with confidence after winning all their friendly matches so far. The sell-out crowd at Signal Iduna Park will play its part in making life difficult for the Bavarians. "We want to show our fans that we mean business," declared captain Marco Reus.
But the Munich fans are also fired up, because "there’s always a certain edge when you play in Dortmund," as Thomas Müller observed. Fiete Arp is also looking forward to his first competitive outing with FCB and aims to build on his recent good performances: "We start again at last, it’s competitive at last, it’s a title at last. I think we're well prepared, we're in good spirits, and I'm very, very optimistic for Saturday."
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