MSV Duisburg 2-0 Kaiserslautern

The first-half formations.

Duisburg beat Kaiserslautern in the quarter-finals of the DFB-Pokal as Milan Šašić got one over his former employers. Goals from Branimir Bajić and Goran Šukalo in either half saw the second division side beat their top-flight visitors comfortably at the noisy Schauinsland-Reisen-Arena. They’ll now join fellow 2. Bundesliga side Energie Cottbus in the last-four of Germany’s premier cup competition.

Kaiserslautern came into the game on the back of a 5-1 defeat at the hands of an Arjen Robben-inspired Bayern. Duisburg were also eager to eliminate an iffy result out of their system – they drew 1-1 away at lowly Ingolstadt on the weekend.

Kaiserslautern took a while to line-up their back-four, all of whom seemed incapable of communicating to one another, making simple forward passes under minimal pressure, or gauging how close they were to their colleagues on either side, and goalkeeper Tobias Sippel. However, they were let off by the fact that The Zebras only managed to carve out one chance from Lautern’s blunders, and Stefan Maierhofer’s woeful finish illustrated why he failed to make the grade at either Wolves, Bristol City or Bayern.

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Kaiserslautern 2-0 Bayern Munich, 27/08/2010

As per usual action in Germany’s top-flight commenced on the Friday, and for the second week in succession Bayern Munich got things under way. Unfortunately for Louis van Gaal, they didn’t quite gets things all their own way.

Much to the delight of a rapturous home-crowd in Kaiserslautern, the 2009/10 2. Bundesliga champions defeated the illustrious treble-winners by a comfortable two-goal margin.

There was nothing particularly brilliant or revolutionary about how Marco Kurz and his team achieved the feat – the three points were a testimony to hard-work and lethargic Bavarian visitors.

Bayern dominated possession, but met a side willing to sit back and press with gusto in their own-half. Therefore, Kaiserslautern old-boy Miroslav Klose & co. found openings difficult to come by.

Adam Nemec was cleverly stationed in Bastian Schweinsteiger’s shadow, stifling the quarterback’s space. Mark van Bommel sought territory further upfield, though this rendered Bayern susceptible to the counter-attack.