Preview: FC Bayern Munich vs. 1. FC Nürnberg

By: Luke | September 17th, 2009

The Bayern-Derby will kick off at 9:30 a.m. EST on Saturday. Those who are really in the spirit can begin drinking at about 6 a.m. EST when Munich Oberbürgermeister Christian Ude (sadly, an 1860 board member) taps the first keg to open Oktoberfest! The match will be shown live on ESPN Deportes and ESPN 360. We’ll be live-blogging the match here at the Bayern Offside, and hope you can join us.

The team was given a well deserved day off on Thursday after their 3rd straight victory in all competitions, a 3-0 win over Maccabi Haifa to open the Champions League schedule. It appears we came out of the Israel trip without any new knocks. Demichelis, Van Bommel and Görlitz remain sidelined, but Miroslav Klose will theoretically be available, as he will practice with the team on Friday. Luca Toni is set to make his season debut…with Bayern II! The amateurs will have a little Bayern-Derby of their own Friday, 1 p.m. EST at the Grünwalder against surprising Jahn Regensburg.

Nürnberg played their best match of the season two matches ago at Stuttgart, a 0:0 draw in which they were probably the better team. They followed that up with their first victory, a less inspiring but effective 1-0 defeat of ‘Gladbach. Statistically, the Franconian outfit have managed to take more shots and control the ball better than you would expect for a team sitting on 5 points from 5 matches. They may take some time to break down. In contrast to Dortmund, this is a team that is terrible in the air, however. Expect this to be a week where one of Lahm’s looping crosses does some damage, or a corner leads to a sparkling header. Nürnberg captain Andreas Wolf’s status is up in the air for Saturday. After the Lell-like action of getting red-carded in a friendly, Wolf was suspended for two matches by the DFB. He is eligible to return this weekend, but had to break off training on Thursday with an injury. Striker Isaac Boakye is also due to miss the match for the visitors.

Key Matchup: Raphael Schäfer vs. the Bayern attack
Realistically, this is the kind of match that can only be salvaged for the visitors by a keeper’s great day in goal. Schäfer will need to bring some magic to the proceedings to carry his team. It can be done. Oka Nikolov pretty much earned a point for Eintracht Frankfurt by himself against Bayern in 2007. But I wouldn’t be betting on it this week.

Prediction: FC Bayern Munich 4:1 1. FC Nürnberg On paper, there is little reason to doubt that Bayern will dominate the match. Der Club has not come out victorious in Munich since 1992, and though last year was a bit of a fluke, Bayern have traditionally been almost unbeatable at home during the Oktoberfest.The final will probably hinge on how early on Bayern is able to break down what we can expect to be a very packed Nürnberg defense. Fitness will be a key here, but I don’t expect any problems. But, I’m not confident enough in our defense yet to predict a clean sheet!

<a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=dabf752632">FC Bayern Munich vs 1. FC NÃ¼rnberg</a>