Guardiola miffed at rough play at Bayern v MLS All-Stars game

Most everyone stuffed into Portland’s Providence Park seemed to have a good time at the Bayern Munich versus MLS All-Star game on Wednesday night, an entertaining affair featuring wonderful goals and supreme individual performances.

Everyone, except Pep Guardiola and the Bayern Munich coaching staff, who were in a foul mood after the match took on an edgier tone in the second half.

Pep complaining about a bad tackle.

Landon Donovan scored in the second half to help the MLS All-Star team rally to beat Bayern Munich 2-1. Robert Lewandowski had scored in the eighth minute for Bayern, before Bradley Wright-Phillips pulled one back with a powerful shot to equalise, reported Xinhua. 

After the match, Guardiola declined to shake hands with MLS Coach Caleb Porter. A second on-field effort by the Portland boss was also rebuffed.

“We certainly didn’t mean to do anything negative in the game,” Porter said. “We have the utmost respect for Bayern, their players, Pep. This guy is an idol of mine. I think there were a couple of tackles that went wrong.”

The problem with the current all-star game format is that the sides are on different wavelengths.

The MLS squad, with two days to prepare, is under some pressure to get a result in front of a home crowd and TV audience – or at least avoid an embarrassing defeat. The visitors were shipped here by the club’s corporate arm and could not care less about the outcome. Continuing Bundesliga preparations and avoiding injury were their priority.

The MLS players are in mid-season form; the visitors are in a pre-season mind-set. 

Sources: Washington Post, Xinhua