Football Matchday Preview and Review

 Germany manager, Joachim Lowe released his selections for the national team to compete in friendlies and competitions yesterday and a few eyebrows were raised on his decision to rest several key players that were part of the Champions League winning team in Portugal last week. Joshua Kimmich, Leon Goretzka, Serge Gnabry and Manual Neuer, who all featured in the final of the Champions League against PSG have been excluded from the squad for resting. Other players not picked are Barca goalie ter Stegen, BVB captain Marco Reus, who had returned for training, Arsenal playmaker Mesut Ozil, and the exiled duo of Thomas Muller and Jerome Boateng. Inclusion of players like Niko Shulz and Ilkay Gundogan have also lead to debate as both players have failed to show their worth in their respective leagues by the display of inconsistent performances. The trio of goalkeeper Oliver Bauman, Atalanta wing-back Robin Gosens and Monchengladbach midfielder, Florian Neuhaus are all being given their f...

 A pre-match with nothing out of the blue. A surprise inclusion of Ousmane Dembele in the Barca squad being the only exciting incident, maybe. But who needs an exciting pre-match when the match speaks for itself. Maybe a couple of years ago, the scoreline would have been closer, but the game that was witnessed was a shock for all three sets of fans - those supporting Barcelona, those supporting Bayern and those watching the match for the fun of it. I, for one, was watching it for the fun of it. Everyone watching knew that it was a Bayern game when they opened the scoring in the third minute with a Thomas Muller goal, who was assisted by Lewandowski. Barcelona replied quickly with a counter-attack in the 7th minute and was lucky to see David Alaba put the ball past his own goalkeeper,  Manual Neuer . Ivan Perisic scored through a strong shot from a very tight angle to hand the lead back to Bayern. Six minutes later, Serge Gnabry wrestled past the Barcelona defenders to score a ...