Ribery out of Bayern Munich’s Super Cup bid
Coach Pep Guardiola, who took over after Jupp Heynckes’s record-breaking season with the Bavarians, said the two players were nursing minor injuries from their friendly 2-0 win over Barcelona this week and would not be fit for their first tilt at a trophy this season.
Guardiola, who won 14 of 19 possible titles in his four years at Barcelona, also cast doubt on the participation of midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who only recently came back from injury. “Bastian will travel with us but we do not know yet if he can play. He has only a few training sessions under his belt,” the Spaniard said yesterday.
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Hide AdMario Goetze, Bayern’s big transfer from Dortmund, will also miss the game as he is still recovering from the muscle injury that kept him out of the Champions League final in May.
The two teams have slugged it out in the Bundesliga in the past three seasons, with Dortmund winning the 2011 and 2012 editions and Bayern returning to the top last season, when they also added the Champions League trophy and the German Cup.
Bayern beat Dortmund 2-1 thanks to a late Arjen Robben goal in the Champions League final in London and also eliminated their rivals in the German Cup quarter-finals.
“You have no excuse if you are Bayern coach,” Guardiola said. “A final is a final and you have no second chances on Saturday.
“It is never easy against Dortmund. We want to see at what level we are at and plan both for the game and beyond.”
For Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp, the early encounter with Bayern has little to do with revenge for the bitter Champions League defeat.
It is more a chance for Dortmund to start the season with a flourish in front of their home crowd.
“We do not entertain any thoughts of revenge,” Klopp said. “We played a great game in Wembley which we could not decide in our favour but from which we learned a lot.”