BayernForum.com

26.02.2007

You expect players to celebrate after scoring an important goal, but the reaction of two Bayern stars to Lukas Podolski's opener in the meeting with VfL Wolfsburg on Saturday was out of the ordinary to say the least. As the men in red trotted back to their own half, Podolski surprised team-mate Mark van Bommel with a hefty shove. The pair looked each other in the eyes and broke out into wide grins. What lay behind the incident?

During the Champions League clash in Madrid some four days earlier, the tables had been turned when Van Bommel treated the 21-year-old striker to a meaty push. "The game was passing me by," Poldi himself accepted, and the Dutchman's shove was intended as a physical wake-up call. "The papers made a lot of it in a negative light," Podolski complained, but the brief altercation was "totally forgotten afterwards. That's what happens during a match, you just get on with it."

<b>Motivation expert Hitzfeld</b>

Podolski returned the compliment against Wolfsburg simply to show he had understood what lay behind the incident in Madrid. "The media got bothered about it but we didn't," explained Van Bommel, the first to congratulate Lukas on his goal. The Dutch battler, "our aggressive leader" as Hitzfeld put it, accepted he may have gone too far. "I could have handled it a little differently in Madrid. But Lukas took my point, and he showed his quality today. He deserved the goal."

Hitzfeld agreed with that statement. "I'm delighted for him. He's bounced back impressively," the head coach declared. The striker took a broadside from the media following the midweek match, but that just made the coach even more determined to field his number 11 against Wolfsburg. "I wasn't going to leave him in the lurch. He was made a bit of a scapegoat after Madrid."

<b>Courage from penalty spot</b>

"It was a superb decision psychologically," Oliver Kahn opined. "If I'd have left him out, it would have stopped him in his tracks, and I didn't want that," Hitzfeld continued. The former Cologne prodigy made a first start of term two weeks earlier against Bielefeld. "Lukas is a junior player, so you have to show some faith," the coach remarked.

The Germany hitman repaid the boss's commitment with an energetic display on Saturday, crowned by his 26th minute penalty conversion. "It was very courageous of him to take the kick. You don't get many 21-year-olds with that kind of confidence. It spoke volumes for his belief and determination. I was very pleased with that," Hitzfeld remarked.

<b>On the up</b>

"I just grabbed the ball, and no-one took it off me. So I put it on the spot and buried it," the man himself explained. It was his second goal in 15 Bundesliga appearances for Bayern, but was undoubtedly not the last. "He's a young player, who simply needs to find his feet, and he's getting more assured all the time," Kahn observed.

Poldi has now started three of Hitzfeld's five games in charge, "and I'm pleased with that," he declared. "I have to keep working on my game and keep on battling," he concluded. That could lead to a little more good-natured argy-bargy with Mark van Bommel in the future.

You can tell Podolski loves van Bommel

Poldi has his head screwed on right, which is good. I can't help thinking we're seeing the development of a class striker. I hope I'm right...

I still want to see more from him. I´m still not convinced.

I agree that Podolski's head is in the right place. I also agree with what Kahn said about Podolski being young and he just needs to find his feet. I think the players also know that they need to help him find his feet and it looks like they're doing it. Give him time and he'll be alright.