Bayern with full focus for trip to Werder Bremen

Bayern are away at Werder Bremen for Matchday 22 in the Bundesliga on Saturday (kick-off at 15:30 CET, live coverage on fcbayern.com and in the FC Bayern app with our text commentary and free web radio). The Bavarians have won their last 15 visits to the Weserstadion and want to extend that run to maintain their lead in the title race. Here’s all you need to know ahead of the game in our preview.

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Bayern head north with wind in their sails after Wednesday’s 2-0 win over RB Leipzig saw them through to the semi-finals of the DFB Cup for the first time in six years. The Reds also beat Hoffenheim 5-1 last week to quickly move on from a brief slip in results, which saw Borussia Dortmund cut the gap at the summit to six points.

Read up on the stats ahead of the game:

For Vincent Kompany, however, that doesn’t matter too much. “I’m pretty cold there. We assume our opponents will win every game – except against us – so we need to do the same,” he said on Friday. The Belgian obviously wants his team to be there to pounce on any slips, but that also doesn’t change anything if the opposition don’t. “I’m 100 percent in that tunnel and hope the team is too,” he added. Bayern’s recent away form shows how focused they can be, having gone 14 months without defeat on their travels in the Bundesliga. And they have no intention of that changing at a ground where they’ve won on every visit for almost two decades.

Read more from Kompany in his pre-match press conference:

Opponent: Werder Bremen

Bremen’s decision to dismiss Horst Steffen and replace him with Daniel Thioune at the start of the month failed to end the team’s poor run of form. They lost 1-0 away at Freiburg in the new coach’s first fixture, which saw Werder’s winless streak in the Bundesliga reach 11 games. A return of 19 points from 21 games is the club’s lowest in six years, while it’s the first time since regaining promotion in 2022 that they’ve been in the bottom three this late in a season, currently occupying 16th spot. Even with that form, Kompany had words of warning about Werder. “They just haven’t scored enough goals,” he insisted, saying that Bremen’s performances have not been that bad. “But it’s about results in football. They’ve come up short there.”

Thioune has recognised positive aspects of his team ahead of his home debut in charge. “We were quite clear in our patterns of play. Everyone’s showed that,” he said after a good week of training since the Freiburg loss. However, the new coach believes that his side know what they’re up against on Saturday: “It’s very ambitious to want to win against this team in this form, so the guys need to take on every individual duel to get that on a level playing field and to have any chance at all.”

Find out more about this Bremen team:

Team news

Michael Olise serves a suspension for five yellow cards. Otherwise, Kompany has a full squad at his disposal in Bremen.

Werder are missing Victor Boniface, Mitchell Weiser, Amos Pieper (all knee injuries) and Maximilian Wöber (muscular). Leonardo Bittencourt has also been ruled out with a muscle tear, but Niklas Stark is back again for the home side.

Try our matchday quiz ahead of the game:

What the coaches say