MTNFootball

Mario Gomez’s three first half goals were enough to see Bayern Munich beat Napoli 3-1 at the Allianz Arena in their Champions League clash on Wednesday night.

Federico Fernandez’s brace (45th and 77th minutes) were not enough to secure the three points for the Italians in an exciting encounter that produced a total of six yellow cards and two red-cards.

Holger Badstuber and Juan Camilo Zuniga were there two players sent off from both sides.

In the opening stages of this game, Bayern were running to the visitors in search of an early goal but Napoli were stubborn and themselves were rather very dangerous on the counter attack.

But in the 17th minute, Mario Gomez was picked out on the edge of the box by Bastian Schweinsteiger and turned with a slick move before slamming an unstoppable shot into the right corner to make it 1-0.

Then in the 23rd minute, Gomez headed home a Ribery corner to make it 2-0.

Despite their early lead, the Bavarians did not stop pumping bodies forward and created a number of scoring opportunities with Toni Kross and Thomas Muller proving to be a threat to Napoli’s back four.

In the 42nd minute, a sublime combination at lightning quick speed saw Kroos, Muller, and Ribery exchange passes before Kroos let it fly from inside the box. The ball was blocked by the goalkeeper into the path of Gomez, who stabbed the ball past De Sanctis to complete his hat-trick.

But Napoli managed to pull one back, a mistake by Van Buyten and Schweinsteiger saw Fernandez lurk completely unmarked to head past Neuer.

Then in the 69th minute the referee produced two yellow cards and a red to change the atmosphere of the game.

In the 79th minute, Fernandez was picked out by Inler with a superb delivery and he rose above Van Buyten to head past Neuer to make it 3-2.

Bayern held on and now top Group A with 10 points from 4 matches.