Bayern begins with a bang

Robert Lewandowski claimed a hat-trick as defending champion Bayern Munich brushed Werder Bremen aside with a 6-0 win in Friday’s opening match of the new German league season.

Lewandowski, the Bundesliga’s top-scorer last season with 30 goals, could have finished with five as Bayern ran riot.

“I’m just happy I scored and that we got the win,” Lewandowski told broadcaster

ARD and revealed he finished the game with a hole in his goal-scoring right boot.

After Xabi Alonso scored the first goal of the 2016-17 campaign at Munich’s Allianz Arena, Lewandowski netted either side of the break before captain Philipp Lahm added a fourth. It was no more than shooting practice for Bayern by the time Franck Ribery fired home, with Lewandowski then converting a penalty to claim his third and Munich’s sixth.

Having also hammered Hamburg 5-0 in last season’s opening game, this was another emphatic win as Bayern looks to win a fifth Bundesliga title in a row. It finished 2-0 at the break, but it could have been at least double that as Lewandowski and then Thomas Muller both hit the woodwork in the opening 45 minutes.

Bayern won last season’s German league title by 10 points, making history with a fourth straight Bundesliga title. It picked up under new coach Carlo Ancelotti where it left off under Pep Guardiola, who left in May to coach Manchester City, with long periods of possession.

The results: On Saturday: Eintracht Frankfurt 1 (Meier 13) bt Schalke 04 0; Augsburg 0 lost to Wolfsburg 2 (Didavi 35, Rodriguez 89-pen); Hamburg 1 (Wood 30) drew with Ingolstadt 1 (Hinterseer 79); Cologne 2 (Risse 11, Modeste 61) bt Darmstadt 0; Borussia Dortmund 2 (Aubameyang 17, 89-pen) bt Mainz 1 (Muto 90+2). On Friday: Bayern Munich 6 (Alonso 9, Lewandowski 13, 46, 77-pen, Lahm 66, Ribery 73) bt Werder Bremen 0.