Football
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Bayern Munich 'have to play much, much better' - Robert Lewandowski

Bayern Munich wasted no time archiving their 1-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt as they turned their attentions to the Champions League following an uncharacteristically difficult win.

The Bavarians host Benfica in the quarterfinals of Europe's elite club competition on Tuesday and that fixture had clearly already crept into their minds on Saturday.

They struggled to display their usual dominant style against a Frankfurt side who were unfortunate not to take points off the record champions for the second time this season, but thanks to an acrobatic Franck Ribery effort, Bayern got the maximum out of the game with the minimum of effort.

"It certainly wasn't a pretty game for the fans, but all that mattered was getting the three points," said Bayern forward Robert Lewandowski.

"We definitely already had Tuesday's Champions League game against Benfica on our minds, but we're going to have to play much, much better in that game."

Indeed, coach Pep Guardiola saw plenty of room for improvement in his side's performance.

"It's always difficult after an international break, but we started well and the opening 25 minutes were our best, crowned by an incredible goal from Franck Ribery," he said.

"Afterward, we didn't have much precision with our final ball and in the closing stages, the players lacked concentration.

"Now we turn our focus to Benfica, of course, and I hope to see a better performance from the team then."

He was not the only unhappy coach at the Allianz Arena on Saturday with Frankfurt's Niko Kovac disappointed, albeit more with the result than the performance of his team.

"I can't be happy with the result because we've lost, but I am pleased with the way my team played," said the former Bayern player.

"We made it hard for them and were able to remain compact for 90 minutes, but unfortunately we were not able to finish off any of the counter-attacks we created."

The end result is the Eagles spend another week inside the bottom two, but with more optimism for the coming weeks.

"It's unfortunate that we've lost, but it was a good game from us," said Bastian Oczipka on the Bundesliga website. "You could see how hard we've been working in recent weeks."

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