23 December,2010 09:21 AM IST | | Agencies
Holders Bayern Munich booked their place in the last eight of the DFB-Pokal in dramatic style after coming out on top in a 6-3 thriller at the Mercedes-Benz Arena as struggling Stuttgart ended the match with just nine men.
Free-scoring Bayern picked up from where they left off at the weekend as they took the lead in the sixth minute. The unmarked Andreas Ottl, who has been battling a flu bug, fired a rasping drive into the back of the net from 30 yards out, leaving Sven Ulreich no chance.
Stuttgart old-boy Mario Gomez extended the lead two minutes later when he converted Thomas Mueller's cutback from the left after poor marking from the Stuttgart defence. That was as good as it was to get for Gomez as he was forced off with injury in place of Miroslav Klose on the half-hour.
Stuttgart showed three days ago that they have fighting spirit and they were able to dig deep to claw their way back into the game on 32 minutes. Ottl misjudged the flight of the ball and missed his header, letting Martin Harnik in on the right-hand side of the penalty box. The in-form Austrian then cut the ball back for Pavel Pogrebnyak who blasted home past a helpless Hans-Joerg Butt.
The Mercedes-Benz Arena erupted on the stroke of half-time as die Schwaben completed their comeback. Pogrebnyak then doubled his and the team's tally with a fine individual effort. He broke into the penalty box and fired the ball high into the net past Butt as Breno was confounded by the striker's footwork and persistence.
After Cacau flashed a shot narrowly wide on 50 minutes, Bayern then re-took the lead barely sixty seconds later. Khalid Boulahrouz won the ball back but as it sped back towards the Stuttgart goal, Matthieu Delpierre committed the cardinal sin of leaving the ball. The Frenchman did not bank on the presence of arch poacher Klose, who ghosted in behind and slotted the ball into the net past Ulreich.
Stuttgart somehow failed to equalise seven minutes later when Cacau capitalised on substitute Daniel Van Buyten's ineptitude before he was denied by Butt. The veteran 'keeper could only parry the ball to Harnik but the Austrian contrived to hit the crossbar with the goal gaping. They then shot themselves in the foot as Boulahrouz was sent off after a second bookable offence - a lunge on Bastian Schweinsteiger over on the touchline.
An incredible cup tie then took another twist on 74 minutes as Cacau was rewarded for chasing a lost cause, he beat Butt to the ball before the former Leverkusen goalie ploughed into him. Christian Gentner was entrusted with penalty-taking duties however Butt redeemed himself instantly, throwing himself to his right to stop the spot-kick.
Three minutes later, Stuttgart defied the odds, and the numerical disadvantage, to level the game up once more. Their skipper Delpierre atoned for his earlier mistake by rising highest to head home via a deflection off Schweinsteiger's back. Stuttgart's joy was short-lived as Mueller blasted the ball home on his left peg from seven yards after collecting Franck Ribery's cross to make it 4-3, provoking wild celebrations on the visitors' bench.
That was not the end of the action in this unforgettable encounter. Philipp Lahm's overlapping run was found by Mueller and Klose slid home the cross with his knee to put the game to bed. Delpierre then ended a highly eventful evening by becoming the second Stuttgarter to be dismissed as he received a second yellow for tugging back Mueller and preventing a goalscoring opportunity.
With the last action of the game, Ribery then scored a rare headed-goal in injury time to put the icing on the cake.
Bayern join the likes of Schalke, Hoffenheim, Duisburg and Cottbus in the last eight to be played in the third week of January.
