Football
Stephan Uersfeld, Germany correspondent 9y

Thomas Muller, Jerome Boateng wary of rising Bayern Munich expectations

Thomas Muller has warned Bayern Munich fans ahead of Sunday's trip to Borussia Monchengladbach that expectations should not be tied to recent impressive results.

On Tuesday, Bayern recorded their highest ever away win in Champions League when they beat Roma 7-1 at the Stadio Olimpico. Pep Guardiola's side was praised for "unearthly" football close to perfection, and named the "best team in Europe right now" by German media.

At the weekend, Die Roten could take a big step towards a third consecutive Bundesliga title -- Gladbach are currently ranked second, but already trail Bayern by four points.

"That will be a totally different game. You can't expect us to score six or seven goals in every match," Bayern defender Jerome Boateng told kicker, and in-form attacker Muller added: "Should it be goalless at half-time, it does not mean that we've played really bad. You need to be careful to not adjust the expectations to the recent results."

Before the Roma trip, Bayern thrashed bottom-of-the-league Werder Bremen 6-0, and have scored an impressive 17 goals and conceded just one in three competitive games in October.

Three of those goals were scored by Mario Gotze, who has finally arrived at Bayern in his second season. Unlike Muller and Boateng, the scorer of Germany's World Cup-winning goal believes Bayern have every chance to continue their fine form against the Foals.

"It's still a bit of time. We rejuvenate now," Gotze said of the Sunday evening tie. And in Bild he added: "It's a new game, but I hope that the result will be similar [to Roma and Bremen]."

On Wednesday, Bayern rounded off the trip to Roma with a papal visit, and the club's official website quoted Pope Francis as of saying that he was hugely impressed by Bayern's 7-1 against Roma. "You played a wonderful game yesterday."

However, German broadsheet FAZ doubted that quote on Thursday. The paper's Vatican correspondent commented that after listening to the audio on Radio Vatican, he would quote Pope Francis as saying: "I've heard about the result last night. No comment, is all I want to say about this."

Regardless of the quote, Bayern not only placed one million euros to the Pope's disposal in Rome, but also visited a refugee home in Munich later that day.

The injured players Bastian Schweinsteiger and Holger Badstuber, as well as CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, visited the refugee home, Munchener Merkur reported.

Bayern donated 250 jackets, sweaters and caps from the club shop to the refugees as part of "second fanshirt" initiative launched by the Football Supporters Europe earlier this week.

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