Harry Kane said he had "a few butterflies" before his Bundesliga debut. They didn't show. The England captain scored one goal and set up another as Bayern Munich routed Werder Bremen 4-0 away in the opening game of the season on Friday. Also read: Lewandowski record as Bayern moves top in Bundesliga Kane, who finally completed his protracted transfer from Tottenham last weekend, showed straight away why Bayern reportedly paid more than 100 million euros ($110 million) for the forward. "There was a bit of nervous excitement to play the game," Kane said. "New surroundings for me, extremely excited to get the season started with my new club and a massive club. So for sure there was a few butterflies. But as always, I feel once I get on the pitch, you know, instinct takes over and I just play my normal game." Also read: What can Ronaldo expect from Saudi Pro League soccer? Kane needed only three minutes to set Leroy Sané free for the opener, before he finally beat Bremen's Jiří Pavlenka with a low shot in the 74th. A Bremen defender's studs deflected the shot slightly inside the left post. The England captain went off shortly afterward with what looked like a cramp, one of three late changes by Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel. Also read: Messi scores early in 1st game outside Florida for Inter Miami at FC Dallas Substitute Thomas Müller set up Sané for the third goal in the final minute then Alphonso Davies set up Mathys Tel, another substitute, to complete the scoring in injury time. The home team's best period was just after the halftime break. "They came out in the second half and had a few chances, made it difficult, but then it was nice to get that second goal, and then the boys off the bench come on and finished the job for us," Kane said. It started with Kane dinking a clever ball forward into space from inside his own half to set Sané free to open the scoring on a counterattack. Bremen's defense should have done better. "We had a few more chances in the first half that we probably could have done a bit better with, to kind of put the game away early. But then we defended better," Kane said. "We were a lot better getting the first contact, and we spoke about that. If we want to be a competitive team this season in all competitions, set-pieces are a big part of that. So really happy with a clean sheet as well. It's going to be important going forward for the rest of the season." Fellow summer signing Kim Min-jae also made his first league start for Bayern, which is bidding to extend its record of 11 consecutive Bundesliga titles. There was a minute's silence before the game for former Bremen player Horst-Dieter Höttges, who died in July. Höttges was a member of West Germany's victorious 1974 World Cup squad.

The European football season 2020-2021 has come to a close. Several star footballers emerged across Europe last season. Also, the majority of the world's finest footballers contributed to their teams' success. Usually, the top performers of the champion teams are picked for the best player awards and the expected players won trophies in the European football season 2020-2021.  Award-winning footballers of 2020-2021 European season Let's take a look at the award-winning footballers from the top five European leagues – the English Premier League, Italian Serie A, Bundesliga, and French League. English Premier League award winners We saw a superb contest between Premier League clubs until the middle of the season. However, Manchester City turned their fortunes around with a 15-game winning streak and eventually won the Premier League for the fifth time and the third time in the past four seasons. Belgian midfielder Kevin de Bruyne was Man City's most important player last season. He scored 10 goals in 40 appearances for the Citizens and earned his second consecutive PFA Player of the Year award. Before that, only Arsenal's Thierry Henry and Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo won two players of the year awards in a row. Meanwhile, Manchester City's defender Ruben Dias earned the Premier League Player of the season 2020-2021 award. Read BCL Football: Fakirerpool thump Wari 4-1 Premier League award winners Player of the Season: Ruben Dias (Manchester City) Young Player of the Season: Phil Foden (Manchester City) Goal of the Season: Erik Lamela (Tottenham) Manager of the Season: Pep Guardiola (Manchester City) Italian Serie A award winners Inter Milan won the Serie A title for the first time in 11 years while Juventas failed to win it for the first time in ten years. Belgian striker RomeluLukaku was the most important player for Inter Milan. He scored 24 goals for the Nerazzurri to help them win the league for the 19th time. Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and AC Milan goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma also won awards. Read What can Bangladesh Achieve in remaining World Cup 2022 Qualifiers? Italian Serie A award winners Most Valuable Player: Belgium RomeluLukaku (Internazionale) Best Striker: Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus) Best Midfielder: NicolòBarella (Internazionale)        Best Defender: Cristian Romero (Atalanta)   Best Goalkeeper: Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan)    Best Young Player: DušanVlahovic (Fiorentina) Winners in Bundesliga Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski received the player of the season award, breaking Gerd Muller's record of most goals in a season. The Polish striker scored 42 goals in only 29 games for the Bavarians, helping them win the German Bundesliga for the 31st time. Lewandowski won the award for the fifth and second seasons in a row. Dortmund's English midfielder Jude Bellingham was named the Silver Arrow award winner for the best young player. Read Ballon d'Or 2021: Who Will Win the Prestigious Award?             Ligue 1 award winners Paris Saint-Germain striker KylianMbappé has won the Ligue 1 player of the year award for the second year in a row despite failing to win a major trophy last season. Lillie won the French league title in 2020-2021. However, only two Lillie players made the cut in the team of the season. PSG's KylianMbappé had a fantastic season, scoring 42 goals in 47 games. Meanwhile, Mbappé's teammate Keylor Navas was named the best goalkeeper of the year following another outstanding season with the club. Bottom Line Some new players emerged in addition to the well-known ones at the end of the European football season 2020-2021. The Messi-Ronaldo era is coming to an end. So, stars like KylianMbappé andErlingHaalandwill have to fill the void. Also, the major teams were not very active on the transfer market last year because of Covid-19. So, the big teams did not perform the way they had hoped to and they are likely to be more active in the transfer market this year to make the 2021-2022 season more competitive. Read FIFA, AFC Qualifiers: Indian captain Sunil Chhetri strike twice to beat Bangladesh 2-0

Thomas Tuchel has long admired Pep Guardiola, from his early coaching days watching the great Barcelona team from afar to the night in 2014 when the pair — then rival Bundesliga managers — talked tactics for hours in a Munich restaurant using salt-and-pepper mills as props. With Tuchel now a world-class manager in his own right, Guardiola might no longer be on that same pedestal. The admiration hasn’t disappeared, though, ahead of their first meeting in English soccer. It’s a big game, too: Guardiola’s Manchester City vs. Tuchel’s Chelsea in the FA Cup semifinals at Wembley Stadium on Saturday. “The benchmark,” Tuchel said in reference to Guardiola and the City team he has rebuilt this season and that is still on course for an unprecedented quadruple of major trophies. The two teams reached the Champions League semifinals this week — Chelsea after getting past Porto and City by outlasting Borussia Dortmund — but Tuchel said there remains a gap between them. After all, City, the Premier League leader, is 20 points ahead of fifth-place Chelsea and Tuchel still sees his team as a work in progress after joining in January as the replacement for Frank Lampard. That does not mean, he said, that Chelsea should have an inferiority complex going into the cup semifinal. The teams will also meet in the league before the end of the season, and maybe in the Champions League final, too. “It’s important that we accept this without making ourselves too small,” Tuchel said. “From next year on, from day one of next season, we will hunt them, we will try to close the gap between us. “We have to admit there is a gap but, for 90 minutes, we are very self-aware and very self-confident that we believe we can close the gap tomorrow for one game. And this is the target for tomorrow. I arrive happy to compete against the benchmark in England and Europe.” In that well-documented meeting of minds in Munich seven years ago — when Guardiola was with Bayern Munich and Tuchel was between jobs at Mainz and Dortmund — waiters reportedly were too afraid to interrupt the two animated coaches, who were using objects from neighboring tables to demonstrate their tactical ideas. Tuchel has established a reputation as something of a thinker, just like Guardiola, but he doesn’t see their meeting on Saturday turning into a chess match. More a physical battle. “We need to be on them every minute,” Tuchel said, “not allow easy chances and exploitation of spaces between our lines. We need to be very brave, play with courage, be adventurous and do what’s needed. “It’s a big challenge and it’s the right moment for us to face a challenge like this.” Indeed, Chelsea has lost only two of 18 games in all competitions under Tuchel, the latest — 1-0 at Porto, courtesy of a last-minute goal — not being enough to stop the London club advancing to the Champions League semifinals for the first time since 2014. Tuchel has rotated his squad heavily amid the fixture pile-up but appears to have landed on a preferred forward line in recent weeks — of Christian Pulisic, Kai Havertz and Mason Mount — that leaves high-profile and expensively purchased attackers like Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner looking on from the bench. “We have no promises to make, no gifts to give,” Tuchel said. “Everybody has to fight hard for their place. “Once you get any minutes, you fight hard to make the coach make a change. This is the life for a player at Chelsea. It’s big fun and you have to embrace the situation even if it’s a bit harder for some players.” Pulisic, the U.S. international, is finally getting a run of games near the end of another injury-affected season and has three goals in his last two league matches. “He made huge progress, he was fantastic in the last games,” Tuchel said. “He has a huge impact physically and in terms of quality, dribbling runs, arriving in the box in crucial moments. He stepped up and this is what I know from him.” Leicester plays Southampton in the second semifinal match on Sunday, when there will be 4,000 spectators inside Wembley, drawn from local residents as opposed to fans from each club. There will be no spectators for Chelsea-Man City.

The usual noises and cheers of crowd is absent as Bundesliga soccer resumed on a quieter note on Saturday after a two-month break due to coronavirus outbreak.

Real Madrid says its soccer and basketball teams have been put in quarantine after a basketball play for the club tested positive for the coronavirus.

Gio Reyna is following his father to the U.S. national team.

Bayer Leverkusen returned to winning ways after beating struggling Wolfsburg 2-0 as Freiburg got the better of Frankfurt following a 1-0 victory to conclude the 11th round in German Bundesliga on Sunday.

Berlin, Oct 27 (AP/UNB) — He just can't stop.