Bayern Munich vs. Wolfsburg: top 5 Bundesliga matches
Robert Lewandowski's incredible five-goal blitz, Kevin De Bruyne picking apart a world-class defence, and always a bundle of goals. Whenever Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg meet in the Bundesliga, entertainment is all but guaranteed.
bundesliga.com highlights some of the best encounters between the duo.
2001/02 Matchday 16: Bayern 3-3 Wolfsburg
Then the reigning European champions, Bayern had only failed to win one of their first eight league encounters with Wolfsburg. They had also triumphed in all four home games - averaging four goals per 90 minutes. So when Claudio Pizarro and Giovane Elber put the hosts 2-0 up inside 17 minutes, they surely did not expect to emerge with only a point.
But Tomislav Maric pulled one back in the dying moments of the first half and Dietmar Kühbauer levelled early in the second to dampen the atmosphere at the Olympic Stadium.
Pizarro's second of the game before the hour mark restored Bayern's lead, but Maric fired home from long range to earn Wolfgang Wolf's Wolves a first-ever point in the Bavarian capital - admittedly, one of only two they have ever taken home from Munich. The 24 games Bayern have hosted against Wolfsburg without defeat in the Bundesliga is a record by any team.
2008/09 Matchday 26: Wolfsburg 5-1 Bayern
Felix Magath's side were in eighth place in early February, but a run of seven successive wins took them into the top three. Surely a visit from Bayern would put an end to whispers of a potential title challenge…wouldn't it?
Wolfsburg had won just twice in the duo's previous 23 meetings, but this 90 minutes lives forever in club folklore. It was remarkable not only in rarity but also quality.
Despite the presence of Edin Dzeko and Grafite for the hosts and Luca Toni and Lukas Podolski up front for the visitors, it was goalless until late in the first half. Toni then provided an almost instant riposte to Christian Genter's opener in the final two minutes before the break.
In the space of 14 second-half minutes - from the 63rd to 77th - Wolfsburg raced away with it. Dzeko and Grafite both scored twice, with the Brazilian netting a mind-bending backheel after the sort of mazy run that would even have bamboozled a GPS tracker.
Watch: Grafite and the Wolves took Bayern apart in 2009
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Such was Wolfsburg's grip on the game, Magath brought on long-serving goalkeeper Andre Lenz in the final minute to replace Diego Benaglio - capping an incredible day with a humiliating blow. "When the opposing coach takes off his goalkeeper, that hurts," admitted Bayern boss Jürgen Klinsmann.
Dzeko and Grafite would go on to net a combined 54 goals between them - the latter finishing with the Torjägerkanone as the league's top goalscorer that season on 28. Wolfsburg ended the campaign by winning the Bundesliga title for the first and so far only time in their history.
2014/15 Matchday 18: Wolfsburg 4-1 Bayern
Wolfsburg had lost 10 in a winless run of 11 meetings with Bayern after their spectacular 2008/09 triumph. The visitors, meanwhile, had gone through the Hinrunde unbeaten - winning all but three matches to be top at the halfway stage of the season. So it's fair to say no one was expecting events to turn out as they did when the top two in the table got the Rückrunde underway in late January.
"He was watching us from up there," said coach Dieter Hecking in reference to Junior Malanda, the young Wolfsburg player who had died in a car crash just three weeks earlier. Tributes were paid to their late teammate as De Bruyne and Bas Dost both scored twice.
Watch: De Bruyne's masterclass against Bayern
"There's no other label for Kevin De Bruyne than 'world class'," said Wolfsburg's sporting director Klaus Allofs. "We simply played badly," was how Jerome Boateng summed up Bayern's colourless display that was barely brightened by Juan Bernat's second-half consolation strike.
Wolfsburg fans must have hoped that - as it drew them to within eight points of the leaders - the victory was a statement of intent from their side. Bayern still had the final say, though, winning the title by 10 points as the Wolves held on to finish runners-up.
2015/16 Matchday 6: Bayern 5-1 Wolfsburg
Bayern no doubt had in mind the lesson they'd been taught at the Volkswagen Arena in January when the pair met again at the Allianz Arena early in the following campaign.
But revenge was looking unlikely with Pep Guardiola's side lacklustre and one-goal down after Daniel Caligiuri had struck 26 minutes in. But cometh the hour, cometh the man as they say. Alright, it was actually 'cometh half-time', but there is no doubt that Lewandowski was THE man.
"At half-time a player came in who did a little something," said Philipp Lahm after witnessing Lewandowski - in the space of nine minutes - flip the scoreboard violently on its head from 0-1 to 5-1 by scoring all five. "It was incredible. Just madness. And he had two more chances, so he should have gone home with seven goals."
Find out what other records Lewandowski broke in the Bundesliga
While Lahm's 'must do better' attitude is what took him and Bayern to such great heights in the game, for us mere mortals nine minutes is the average time we spend on the phone to customer service before losing our cool. Lewandowski kept his to demolish and demoralise a Wolfsburg side who must have initially thought it was their night.
"I don't know how fast it was, but it was fast. But when you're on the pitch, you're just focused on football. I looked at the scoreboard, it was the 60th minute and I only thought: 'Ooh,'" said Lewandowski after being inspired by nothing more than a knowing look from his boss. "Guardiola didn't need to say anything - I know what I have to do on the pitch."
"I've never experienced such a situation, either as coach or as a player," admitted a baffled Guardiola, who was left with his head in his hands and his eyes wide with disbelief as the goals rained in. "Five goals in nine minutes. I am very happy for Robert. You play poorly for 45 minutes and then grab five goals in nine minutes. I cannot explain it."
2016/17 Matchday 31: Wolfsburg 0-6 Bayern
It's always best to clinch the league title on home soil. Bayern, though, did the next best thing as they secured a fifth successive Bundesliga crown with three games to go. In doing so, they both set a new Bundesliga record for consecutive league wins and inflicted a heaviest home defeat ever on Wolfsburg.
A David Alaba free-kick was the prelude to a Lewandowski double that gave Carlo Ancelotti's Bayern a handsome 3-0 half-time lead. Arjen Robben, Thomas Müller and Joshua Kimmich struck in the second half to further deflate the hosts, who also had Luiz Gustavo sent off on a miserable day for them.
"I'm really happy - the performance was good," said Ancelotti with trademark understatement after the first and only league title he would claim with Bayern.
Watch: See how Bayern secured the title in Wolfsburg
Find out more on the next encounter on Matchday 19
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