MUNICH – Gareth Bale scored against former club Tottenham Hotspur as Real Madrid won 2-0 on Tuesday to set up a final against Bayern Munich in the pre-season Audi Cup friendly tournament in Germany.
The Wales international was playing against Spurs for the first time since his £85.3m world record transfer to Madrid in September 2013.
The 26-year-old found the net on 79 minutes after James Rodriguez headed home the opener after 36 minutes at Munich’s Allianz Arena.
Last year’s tournament winners Bayern Munich later dominated AC Milan 3-0 to join the Spaniards in Wednesday’s final.
It will be the first meeting between the two teams since April 2014 when the Spaniards ran riot in a 4-0 Champions League semi-final second leg win en route to their record tenth European Cup triumph.
The win boosted Pep Guardiola’s Bayern side three days after their German Super Cup loss on penalities to Wolfsburg, the only title the Spaniard has failed to win since his arrival in Bavaria.
Juan Bernat opened the scoring after 24 minutes for the hosts with the help of a Cristian Zapata deflection, but it was new signing Douglas Costa who was the man of the match until his substitution at the break.
The Brazilian midfielder has had a good pre-season since his arrival from Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk last month and he was inspirational in combination with Mario Gotze and fellow new signing Arturo Vidal.
Chilean Vidal – who arrived from Italian champions Juventus last week – almost scored twice with two thumping headers – the first hitting the crossbar on 36 minutes with the second just missing the target seven minutes later.
Despite dominating, Bayern had to wait until the 74th minute to get a second with Gotze scoring as Robert Lewandowski completed the scoreline five minutes from time with a powerful shot that left Diego Lopez with no chance in the Milan goal.
Overrun by the Bundesliga champions, AC Milan will look to save face against Tottenham in the third-place play-off, also on Wednesday. – Nampa-AFP
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