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Bayern Munich win Bundesliga as Wolfsburg lose in Mönchengladbach
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Bayern Munich won a third straight Bundesliga title after Wolfsburg lost at Borussia Mönchengladbach on Sunday to leave the champions with an unassailable 15-point lead with four games left.
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Bayern, who have won 25 German league titles including one before the Bundesliga’s creation in 1963, beat Hertha Berlin 1-0 on Saturday but had to put the champagne on ice until after second-placed Wolfsburg’s game on Sunday.
Gladbach’s Max Kruse scored in the 90th minute for a 1-0 victory that ended any mathematical chance of Wolfsburg catching the Bavarians. It also put second place in danger with Gladbach four points behind on 57 in third.
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The Bundesliga title is the second for Pep Guardiola in his second season as coach, and the Spaniard is chasing a repeat of the league, cup and Champions League treble they won months before he arrived in 2013.
“It is something magnificent to defend our title and I can only congratulate our coach and players,” said the Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in a statement.
“They did it extremely well in a year after a World Cup where many of our players were competing.”
Bayern, domestic double winners last season, face Guardiola’s old club Barcelona in the Champions League semi-finals next month and take on Borussia Dortmund next week in the last four of the German Cup.
“You can compare the 25th title to a silver anniversary,” the honorary Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer said. “They played an outstanding first half of the season despite the energy-sapping World Cup. A 25th title needs special mention.”
Despite being plagued by injuries to key players throughout the season, including Bastian Schweinsteiger, Franck Ribéry and Philipp Lahm, Bayern dismantled every domestic opposition in the league.
They took charge from the start as Borussia Dortmund, last season’s runners-up, imploded, with Wolfsburg emerging only briefly as title contenders before the gap to the top grew even more.
“It’s amazing to win three league titles in three years with Bayern,” the midfielder Javi Martínez, one of those sidelined with injury for months this season, wrote on Twitter. “Today is a very happy day.”
Bayern have lost twice and conceded 13 goals in 30 matches, a record for this stage of the Bundesliga.
“Have no doubt, we will have big celebrations,” Rummenigge said. “But everything at the right time. Then we will party.”
