{"id":75684,"date":"2014-12-20T10:57:26","date_gmt":"2014-12-20T10:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=75684"},"modified":"2014-12-20T10:57:26","modified_gmt":"2014-12-20T10:57:26","slug":"bayern-munich-earn-last-minute-win-mainz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=75684","title":{"rendered":"Bayern Munich earn last minute win over Mainz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\" class=\"introduction\">Arjen Robben&#8217;s last-minute winner ensured German leaders Bayern Munich ended a successful 2014 with a dramatic victory at mid-table Mainz.<\/p>\n<p>Mainz led when Elkin Soto met a low right-wing cross to fire through the legs of Bayern keeper Manuel Neuer.<\/p>\n<p>But their lead lasted 167 seconds as Bastian Schweinsteiger curled a 20-yard free-kick into the top corner.<\/p>\n<p>Neuer superbly denied Mainz midfielder Yunus Malli shortly after half-time before Robben struck from close range.<\/p>\n<p>Bayern, who won the German league and cup double last term, move 14 points clear of nearest rivals Wolfsburg, who host Cologne on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>With the Bundesliga taking a five-week winter break after this weekend, the Bavarian club have already been crowned as the &#8216;Herbstmeister&#8217; &#8211; the title given to the side who enter the mid-season point as league leaders.<\/p>\n<p>But Pep Guardiola&#8217;s side, who have won 14 and drawn three of their 17 Bundesliga matches, were rather fortunate to leave Mainz with maximum points.<\/p>\n<p>Ballon d&#8217;Or nominee Neuer is vying with Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to be crowned as the world&#8217;s best player and, despite his earlier error for Mainz&#8217;s opener, showed his world-class quality to deny Malli.<\/p>\n<p>The Mainz midfielder raced clear of the Bayern defence on to Koo Ja-cheol&#8217;s lofted through-ball, only to see his angled half-volley beaten away by the 28-year-old keeper.<\/p>\n<p>And that save proved pivotal. Netherlands forward Robben netted the winner, in the same week <span class=\"text\">he was crowned Dutch Sportsman of the Year,<\/span><span class=\"external-link-icon\">\u00a0<\/span> by converting Juan Bernat&#8217;s left-wing cross with 30 seconds of normal time remaining.<\/p>\n<p>Bayern return to action when they visit Wolfsburg on 30 January.<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-feature image full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79856000\/jpg\/_79856099_bayern.jpg\" alt=\"Mainz v Bayern Munich\" width=\"624\" height=\"260\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Colombia midfielder Elkin Soto scored his first goal of the season to put Mainz ahead<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"story-feature image full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79856000\/jpg\/_79856729_bayern.jpg\" alt=\"Mainz v Bayern Munich\" width=\"624\" height=\"260\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Bayern Munich&#8217;s Bastian Schweinsteiger has scored two of his last four Bundesliga goals with a direct free-kick<\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">&#8211;<\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Source: BBC Sport<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arjen Robben&#8217;s last-minute winner ensured German leaders Bayern Munich ended a successful 2014 with a dramatic victory at mid-table Mainz. Mainz led when Elkin Soto met a low right-wing cross to fire through the legs of Bayern keeper Manuel Neuer. But their lead lasted 167 seconds as Bastian Schweinsteiger curled a 20-yard free-kick into the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":75685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}