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Bayern slip up with Manchester United next on the agenda
 BAYERN MUNICH 1
Olic 32
 STUTTGART 2
Träsch 41, Marica 50
Bayern Munich lost a second consecutive Bundesliga game on Saturday as the race for the title enters a crucial stage and Bayern themselves prepare to fight on three different fronts for annually expected honours. After their hard-fought win against Schalke in mid-week - following 120 minutes of torturous DFB-Pokal semi-final football on a much-criticised heavy, scraggy Schalke pitch - Louis van Gaal's men had to put the anticipation and excitement of a Champions League quarter-final against Manchester United on Tuesday to the back of their minds and concentrate on getting back to winning ways in the league. Unfortunately they were unable to do that, with the extra-time exertions of Wednesday's cup game and the upcoming duel with Sir Alex Ferguson's side seeming to have physical and mental affects respectively.
Van Gaal opted to leave both regular match-winner Arjen Robben and creative gem Franck Ribéry - back fit after a series of niggles in recent weeks - on the bench, clearly confident his players had enough invention to break down a Stuttgart team lying second in the form table, but who would clearly sit back and play on the counter attack. That is exactly what they did but in the first half they had little chance to utilise the second part of that tactic, as Bayern played with an unusually slow tempo and rare caution for the first half-hour. It was not until Ivica Olic's opening goal on 32 minutes that Bayern, somewhat foolishly as it turned out, decided to play with more drive and flow, thus opening the game up and affording Stuttgart more chances to counter. It was from a swift break up-field that ended up with Christian Träsch firing a 22-yard shot at goal - deflecting wickedly off Holger Badstuber's back and into the net - for the leveller shortly before half-time.
The introduction of Robben and Ribéry immediately after the break, blatantly in the hope Stuttgart would become frightened by their pace and trickery, only served to enhance the impression that more and more vast spaces were developing in which die Schwaben could counter into and use effectively. In the early stages of the second-half it was almost end-to-end stuff, culminating in Ciprian Marica's headed goal after a scramble in the Bayern box and Cacau's dinked cross. Despite plenty of pressure from Bayern thereafter, they looked extremely leggy and bereft of ideas on how to breach a solid Stuttgart rearguard. With their next two Bundesliga games being away encounters against both title rivals - Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen - and their thoughts having to turn to the Red Devils in the Champions League this coming Tuesday, the next few weeks are of huge importance to Bayern Munich. To add salt into their wounds, the sight of star man Arjen Robben hobbling around on the touchline in the last throws of this game will not at all be welcome. Should his problem turn out to be significant, it is more than plausible Bayern's season could dissolve into a heap of nothingness in the forthcoming weeks.
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