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Munich pick off tiring Maccabi Haifa

Mueller's strikes proved the breaking point for Haifa, who, even after van Buyten scored the first in the 64th minute, tried valiantly to make inroads into the Bayern defence and came close on two occasions.

Bayern dominated possession save for a 10-minute period at the beginning of the second half and it proved enough as the Germans eventually wore down Haifa's tiring defence.

In the first half, Haifa defended bravely with Bayern's Ivica Olic heading the ball into the net in the 26th minute but it was ruled offside.

Haifa's Vladimer Dvalishvili had his side's best effort when his shot from the edge of the area in front of goal was tipped over the bar by Bayern keeper Hans-Joerg Butt in the 76th minute.

"I was very satisfied about the first half. We played at a very high tempo."

He added that Haifa could not keep up with Bayern's pace. "After we scored the first goal, it was easy for us," the Dutch coach said.

"After we went 1-0 down we went for broke and tried to equalise but at this level you must be patient to the end. The 3-0 scoreline does not tell the full tale of events during the match," he said.

Despite the convincing defeat, Haifa's players received a healthy round of applause from the almost capacity crowd of 39,000 spectators on a sultry evening at the National Stadium in Tel Aviv.