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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Matt Verri

Liverpool 3-4 Bayern Munich: New captain Virgil van Dijk scores but Reds fall to thrilling pre-season defeat

Liverpool’s unbeaten pre-season run came to an end after a thrilling 4-3 defeat to Bayern Munich.

The Reds made the perfect start in Singapore, as Cody Gakpo fired them in front inside two minutes after a lovely one-two with Diogo Jota, taking full advantage of an incredibly high line from Bayern.

Thomas Tuchel’s side grew into the match but the lead was doubled on the half-hour mark when Virgil van Dijk, confirmed as the club’s new permanent captain this week, rose highest to head home from a corner.

That lead did not make it to half-time though, as Bayern got themselves level. Serge Gnabry, potentially offside, halved the deficit after a brilliant ball from Kim Min-jae, before Gnabry then squared for Leroy Sane to equalise just under ten minutes later.

Plenty of changes were made in the second-half and one of those was the introduction of Luiz Diaz, who restored Liverpool’s lead after getting on the end of Mohamed Salah’s pass inside and finishing well.

Again Liverpool were pegged back though, their defending costing them. Matthijs de Ligt’s header from a free-kick was parried out by Alisson, but straight into the path of Josip Stanisic who had a simple task with the rebound.

The match looked to be heading towards a penalty shootout as it ticked into stoppage-time, but Frans Kratzig had other ideas as he got on the end of a ball over the top and hammered a wonderful finish into the top corner past a stunned Alisson.

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