Augsburg ended Bayern Munich’s winning start to the Bundesliga on Tuesday by scoring a late equaliser for a 1-1 draw, subduing an atmosphere that was already flat due to fan protests.
Fans across the Bundesliga had agreed to stay silent in an “atmosphere boycott” for the first 20 minutes to protest inconvenient kick-off times and the general treatment of supporters after a breakdown in dialogue with the German football federation (DFB) and German football league (DFL).
On the field, Bayern struggled to break down the visitors early on, they looked to have won with Arjen Robben’s goal after the break but goalkeeper Manuel Neuer spilled a corner in the 86th minute and 20-year-old Felix Gotze — the brother of former Bayern midfielder Mario Gotze — bundled the ball over the line.
Augsburg showed no respect for the German champions in the early exchanges at the Allianz Arena, pushing forward and putting plenty of pressure on a Bayern defence that had only conceded two goals in their opening four league games.
After a frustrating first half, Bayern broke forward three minutes into the second period and Serge Gnabry squared the ball to Dutchman Robben, who rifled past the despairing dive of goalkeeper Andreas Luthe and defender Jeffrey Gouweleeuw.
Bayern looked set to preserve their perfect start to the season and substitute Franck Ribery even had the ball in the net again in the 84th, but his effort was ruled out because Thomas Muller was adjudged to have been offside in the build-up.
Gouweleeuw got his revenge two minutes later, reacting first to serve up Neuer’s spilled catch to Goetze, who chested the ball over the line as mid-table Augsburg celebrated becoming the first side to take points off Bayern this season
The draw marks the end of Bayern’s four-game winning streak to start the league season, and seven-game run in all competitions since Niko Kovac took over as coach in the offseason.
Kovac would have equaled Carlo Ancelotti’s record of eight straight wins to start his reign had Bayern been able to protect the advantage.
The protests were also carried out in the day’s other three Bundesliga matches as Werder Bremen fans stayed silent for the first 18 minutes and 30 seconds of their side’s 3-1 win over Hertha Berlin — Hertha fans waited the planned 20 minutes — while there were similar scenes at matches in Hannover and Freiburg.
Banners carrying slogans against pay-TV such as, “Imagine it’s football and no one can go,” “Stop the carve-up of game-days,” and “Football is for you and me — Not for [expletive] pay-TV” were displayed in Bremen’s stadium.
The protests were due to take place Tuesday and Wednesday at all games across Germany’s top three football divisions.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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