Pep Guardiola says Bayern have taken a step closer to the title by opening up a 20-point advantage at the summit this weekend
Pep Guardiola says Bayern have taken a step closer to the title by opening up a 20-point advantage at the summit this weekend

Guardiola: 'One step closer to the title'

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Munich - With FC Bayern München closing in on the 2013/14 Bundesliga title with every passing week, coach Pep Guardiola was understandably pleased with his players' efforts at the weekend.

FC Bayern München 5-1 FC Schalke

He was not the only happy tactician however, although there was also a fair share of sad, stunned and bewildered colleagues who struggled to express their feelings at the end of a dramatic Matchday 23.

bundesliga.com rounds up the coaches' quotes...

Pep Guardiola (Bayern): We got lucky with David Alaba’s free-kick. Our rhythm was good in the first half and our shape was very good. I have to praise the team as we've gained one more point over second place and have one game less to play. We've taken a step closer to defending our title.

Jens Keller (Schalke): That was the worst I've ever seen. The first half was a disaster for us, and the team hadn’t digested the game on Wednesday. After we conceded the early goal, my team got frightened and we weren’t willing to get stuck in.

1899 Hoffenheim 6-2 VfL Wolfsburg


Markus Gisdol (Hoffenheim): It's extremely rare to beat such good opposition in the way we did. We pressed them well, almost to perfection, in the first half and forced them to make mistakes time and again. It's a joy to see the strength our team is developing, it was a great performance from us. We now have 29 points after 23 games, which is great, but we won’t get any easy points in the next few games.

Dieter Hecking (Wolfsburg): That’s how quickly things can turn around. Just two weeks ago we came here and beat them in the DFB Cup and now they hammered us. We didn’t pass well - if I'm wearing a white shirt, I need to pass to a player wearing a white shirt. We gifted them the third and fourth goals just before half-time. There's practically no point in trying after that, but we tried to change things around. I don’t want to take anything away from Hoffenheim’s performance, but it was an extremely poor afternoon for us.

Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 VfB Stuttgart


Armin Veh (Frankfurt): We're ecstatic that we've managed to turn the game around. VfB were always dangerous but I need to pay a huge compliment to my team for their performance in the second half. We fought very hard after the disappointment on Thursday, just like you've got to do in a relegation battle. The team always believed in themselves. We don't score all that many in the 90th minute.

Thomas Schneider (Stuttgart): Obviously I'm extremely disappointed about the way the game panned out. That was our best performance in weeks and tactically we were very good. In the second half, we had the chance make it 2-0, Maxim just needed to touch the ball into the empty net. But just like we’ve done in the past few weeks, we gifted them the game in the end.

Borussia Dortmund 3-0 1. FC Nürnberg


Jürgen Klopp (Dortmund): My team showed a lot of effort, and they had to. Nürnberg started confidently and we created a lot of chances for ourselves in the first half.

Gertjan Verbeek (Nürnberg): We were well organised defensively in the first half. We couldn’t play to our strengths, but that was due to Dortmund’s quality. I still saw positives we can build on in our defensive work though.

Bayer 04 Leverkusen 0-1 1. FSV Mainz


Sami Hyypiä (Leverkusen): My boys tried to fight, but it wasn’t convincing enough and we didn't find any rhythm. If you don’t score any goals, it's hard to win games.

Thomas Tuchel (Mainz): We needed a long time to get into the game. We were the underdogs here. We've now kept two clean sheets - in Schalke and now here - and we can build on that.

Hertha BSC 0-0 SC Freiburg


Jos Luhukay (Hertha): I think we started well in the first 10 or 15 minutes but then we lost control going forwards and that dragged on into the second half. We struggled and never really found our rhythm.

Christian Streich (Freiburg): The positive was that we were pretty well organised. That was a decent away game from us and compliments to the lads. We can live with the draw.