Next Friday, 22nd August 2014, the current German champions Bayern Munich will entertain Wolfsburg at the beautiful Allianz Arena for the opening round of the 2014-15 Bundesliga edition.

After a slow start against Borussia Dortmund at the German Super Cup last week, Bayern Munich seemed to get back on track as they defeated the fragile Preussen Munster side for the DFB Pokal on Sunday. Pep Guardiola’s boys were in control of the match from the beginning and Mario Göetze’s goal on 19th minute of the first-half didn’t come as a surprise. The Germans champions won by 4-1 and granted their place on the next round of the competition without having the need to dig deep in order to obtain a positive outcome from the match.

There aren’t many new faces at the 2014-15 Bayern Munich, although one of them is certainly ready to make some damage on their opponents throughout the season: the one and only Robert Lewandowski. The Polish sharpshooter arrived this Summer from their rivals of Borussia Dortmund, where he scored more than 100 goals in just four seasons. Besides the Bundesliga top scorer, Bayern have also signed the experienced Spanish goalie Pepe Reina from Liverpool and Juan Bernat from Valencia.

The Spanish manager will certainly not change much on his usual 4-1-4-1 for the opening match of the season, with Lahm acting as some sort of deep-lying playmaker between the defence and the midfield lines and with Müller playing behind the Polish tower up in the front.

For the match against Wolfsburg next Friday, Guardiola will not be able to rely on the contribution of the versatile Spanish midfielder Javi Martínez and of the German international Bastian Schweinsteiger, both sidelined due to injury.

As for Wolfsburg, the new season starts off with a fairly complicated trip to the Allianz Arena, home of the German reigning champions; nevertheless, Die Wölfe have a strong team and they will certainly try to create a major upset to Bayern next Friday. Dieter Hecking’s men experienced some unexpected difficulties to defeat Darmstadt 98, from the German second tier, as they were forced to decide the match on the penalty shootout.

Wolfsburg's pre-season was fairly complicated as they suffered some heavy defeats at the hands of Atlético Madrid and Bayern Munich and as they failed to put up consistent performances during the matches in which they participated.

When both sides met at Allianz Arena last year, Bayern Munich grabbed a narrow 1-0 win thanks to a goal from Müller on the second-half of the match. The current Bundesliga champions are firm favourites to win next Friday’s match, especially since the visitors still look far from their best at this stage of the season.

Bayern Munich

Stats: W-3 L-2 D-0

Recent Form - WLLWW

Wolfsburg

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - WLDDL

Possible Line-ups

Bayern Munich (4-1-4-1) Neuer - Bernat - Dante - Boateng - Alaba - Lahm - Badstuber - Göetze - Ribery - Müller - Lewandowski

Wolfsburg (4-2-3-1) Benaglio - Ricardo Rodriguez - Naldo - Knoche - Schäfer - Guilavogui - Kevin de Bruyne - Arnold - Luiz Gustavo - Perisic - Olic

Prediction

Bayern Munich 2 Wolfsburg 0