Guardiola happy with Bayern pre-season progress

Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola was pleased with his side’s 2-1 victory over Manchester City in the final of 2013 Audi Cup.

Goals from Thomas Mueller and substitute Mario Mandzukic were enough to see Bayern crowned winners of the pre-season tournament on Thursday after Alvaro Negredo had given City a second-half lead.

The match spelled the end of Bayern’s pre-season campaign, with a DFB-Pokal clash against fourth-tier club BSV-Schwarz-Weiss Rehden looming next week.

“It’s not easy to play against City with (Samir) Nasri, (Stevan) Jovetic and Negredo,” Guardiola said.

“They all are incredible and if Dante and Javi (Martinez) were at full fitness it would have been a nice competition.

“Martinez has only trained five or six times with us, it’s not a surprise that he is not 100 percent yet.

“But therefore the match was good, we gained more match experience, I’m happy about his performance.”

The Bundesliga champions kick-off their title defence with a home fixture against Borussia Moenchengladbach at Allianz-Arena in just over a week.

And despite limited preparations for a number of key personnel, Guardiola is ‘happy’ with the state of his squad heading into the season opener.

“I’m happy about the way the players are behaving, they have all worked really hard so far,” Guardiola said.

“Bastian Schweinsteiger just came back after a few training sessions, Mario Goetze is joining us soon as well, Dante and Martinez had a short period of preparation.

“But the season is long and we have plenty of time to work on it.”