Champions League 2012-13: Before the final, Part IV

The Champions League has already seen all-Spanish (2000), all-Italian (2003) and all-English (2008) finals, and now it’s Germany’s turn. The second leg of the semifinals confirmed the Wembley-places for the two German clubs Bayern and Borussia Dortmund. But the scenarios were different in these semifinals. Borussia was getting closer and closer to eventual elimination, but the final whistle caught Real still looking for the crucial goal. Bayern had absolutely no problems in Barcelona, as the team devastated Tito Vilanova’s boys one more time.

First Germany took the

Champions League 2012-13: Before the final, Part III

Celtic, Glasgow, Scotland: The glorious fans of Celtic saw their favorite team win the Scottish League. The team has also reached the Scottish FA Cup final, scheduled on the 26^th of May, but the League Cup wasn’t meant to go to Glasgow, as Celtic lost to St. Mirren in the semifinal.

Shakhtar, Donetsk, Ukraine: The Ukrainian champions successfully defended their title and won the Ukrainian Cup, scoring three in the final match against Chernomorets. Mircea Lucescu needs to fight for his leaders to remain in the club for another season, otherwise the team will find it really hard to play as well as they did in the Champions League 2012-13 group stage.

AC Milan, Italy: Massimiliano Allegri’s team, together with the winter signing Mario Balotelli, managed to do what seemed to be impossible half a year ago – they took the bronze medals, earning the right to participate in the Champions League qualification round next season. The cup run, as last year, had ended after the draw had made them meet Juventus.

Schalke 04, Gelsenkirchen, Germany: Despite the mid-season crisis, where the team appeared deep in the middle of the table, Jens Keller’s leadership made the team occupy the desired fourth position in the Bundesliga, so there is a chance for Schalke-fans to see Champions League football again next season. The cup run was ended right in the middle of the crisis mentioned above.

Porto, Portugal: Not losing a single match and winning the most important one against Benfica, Porto defended the Portuguese League title. The Cup runs didn’t bring any gold, though, as the team lost to Braga two times: the League Cup was lost in the final, and the national cup - in an even earlier stage.   

Arsenal, London, England: As Milan and Schalke 04, Arsenal was also believed to be missing from the list of the Champions League 2013-14 participants, but a strong finish made them appear on the 4^th place. Any medal opportunity was lost in the period before February.    

Paris Saint-Germain, France: Finally PSG won the French title, without serious problems though. The team has conceded only 22 goals in the French League 37 matches. But despite the huge difference between the capital city-based team and the other ones, Carlo Ancelotti’s side didn’t win the French Cup, losing to Evian in the quarterfinal. The League Cup was also lost in the same round: this time to the eventual winners St. Etienne. Losing three out of three quarterfinals is probably not the best result for a team spending so much money on recruiting stars, so Ancelotti’s successor is definitely going to be under pressure from the management and the fans.

Galatasaray, Istanbul, Turkey: Fatih Terim’s team won the Turkish League once again, but lost the national cup in a very early stage, not even reaching the group stage of the competition. Together with rivals Fenerbahce, the Turkish football set a high benchmark this season.

Malaga, Spain: Malaga’s appearance in the Champions League quarterfinals was predicted to be a rare achievement for the team for years to come. Seems like the predictions are coming true, as the team will not be in the competition next year. Even if Malaga wins the two last matches of the league, they will not find themselves higher than the 6^th position. The Cup run didn’t get successful either, as the team lost to Barcelona in another quarterfinal stage of the season.

Juventus, Turin, Italy: The Italian champions defended their title and reached the semifinal of the national cup competition, losing to Lazio in a dramatic semifinal. Antonio Conte’s team was way too stronger than the Italian competitors this season, so now they need to start competing with European giants to make life interesting.

Barcelona, Spain: Tito Vilanova’s players managed to return the league title to Catalonia, but the way they lost to Bayern and Real in the semifinals of the Champions League and Spanish Cup respectively doesn’t wake optimism. The time is up to move forward and build something new to repeat the glorious achievements.

Real Madrid, Spain: Jose Mourinho had come to Madrid to win the Champions League, but what he achieved was the semifinals all three seasons. Losing the league title to rivals Barcelona and the Cup final to the city rivals Atletico, the team cannot boast of anything special this year. Let’s see what the next manager is going to do with the team.     

Champions League 2012-13: Before the final, Part II

CFR Cluj, Romania: Cluj has been the biggest disappointment of the Romanian season. The team was defeated 0-5 in aggregate in the Europa League round of 32. By the end of the season the team is too far from the Europa League zone. The only positive news for the fans is the place in the Romanian Cup final, which is going to take place on the first day of summer.

Montpellier, France: Only one match to go, Montpellier is on the 8^th position in the French League, which prevents the fans of seeing their team play in continental tournaments next season. Both the national and league cups were lost already in January, so the golden season was followed by a very bad one for Rene Girard.

Lille, France: As Montpellier, Lille has also lost everything possible, but there is a chance for the team to appear in the Europa League next season, as the team is on the 5^th position of the French League before the last matchday.

FC Nordsjælland, Farum, Denmark: The Danish champions were much worse than last season, but they still managed to bring a bit intrigue in the Danish league, until they lost the crucial match and thus the title to FC Copenhagen. There is still a chance for the team to enter the Champions League group stage, if they get through the qualification round. The Danish Cup run was stopped in October.

Olympiacos, Pireus, Greece: There are no serious competitors for Olympiacos in Greece. The team completed the second double in a row, winning both the Greek league and the national cup. There were also chances to lift the third trophy, but the team lost to Levante in the Europa League play-off.

Dynamo Kyiv, Ukraine: A season to forget for Oleh Blokhin’s team: Dynamo came only third in the Ukrainian League. However, the position gives the team a chance to fight for the Champions League group stage next season. The team, as many other Champions League group stage participants, was defeated in the Europa League round of 32. The national cup was also lost in the earlier stages.

Zenit, St. Petersburg, Russia: The Russian champions, predicted to have a successful season after spending lots of money during the summer transfer window, lost everything possible, as they were eliminated in the Europa League round of 16, were defeated by Anzhi in the national cup semifinal, and lost the league title to CSKA. Zenit will have to win in the Champions League qualifying round, if they plan to enter the group stage next season.

Spartak Moscow, Russia: The other Russian team had an even worse season, where it was necessary to fire the manager in the middle of the season. The new old manager Valery Karpin seems to have fixed something and the team is in the Europa League zone before the last match of the league. The cup match was lost already in October.

 Manchester United, England: The last season of Sir Alex Ferguson could have been better, although the team showed how strong they stand compared to the other English clubs. It was already clear after the winter break that Manchester United was going to return the English title. But the hard defeats to Real Madrid in the Champions League round of 16 and to Chelsea in both League Cup and FA Cup still complete an average season for Ferguson’s benchmark.

Valencia, Spain: After being the third force of the Spanish League for a long time, Valencia struggles to earn a Champions League place this season. However, the change of the manager has had a positive impact on the performances, so the team has had a much better period under Ernesto Valverde’s management. The team was beaten in the Spanish Cup quarterfinal.

Champions League 2012-13: Before the final, Part I

Before the final match will decide the most successful team of the Champions League 2012-13, let’s take a look at the 30 participants beaten on the road to the final in Wembley and see where they ended up after being eliminated at various stages of the tournament.

Ajax, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Ajax won the third consecutive Eredivisie this season. The most important match was won on the 14^th of April, when the champions defeated their main competitors PSV at Eindhoven. After leaving the Champions League Ajax had appeared in the Europa League. The team got unexpectedly eliminated in the stage of last 32 after losing to Steaua on penalties. A couple of days later they lost to AZ Alkmaar in the semifinal of the Dutch Cup.  

BATE, Borisov, Belarus: The Belarusian League normally starts in spring and ends in autumn. The champions BATE had defended their title while still being involved in the Champions League. As Ajax, BATE was also transferred to Europa League and eliminated right away. The cup run was not meant to be successful either, as they were already eliminated in the earlier stages.

Anderlecht, Brussels, Belgium: The Belgian champions managed to defend their title only in the last match of the league, where they had to earn a point against the followers Zulte Waregem. The visitors were close to win the crucial match, but Anderlecht didn’t concede the vital goal despite being a man down. The cup run was less successful as the team lost to the eventual champions Genk in the semifinal stage.

Dinamo, Zagreb, Croatia: This is another team having the chance to show up again next year. Dinamo easily won the domestic league long time before its climax. The team had been eliminated from the national cup already in October.

Chelsea, London, England: Not having a successor on the Champions League throne yet, the team managed to climb up on top of another continental tournament, the Europa League. Despite the negative atmosphere at the Stamford Bridge, Rafa Benitez did a great job, also winning a place in the next Champions League edition, securing the third place in the Premier League. Both the FA Cup and the League Cup runs ended in the semifinals, while the Club World Championship was lost in the final.

Manchester City, England: After the second dreadful Champions League campaign the team needed to win the Premier League again as a consolation for the fans, but the neighbors from Manchester United were determined to return the title and did so confidently long before the last match of the tournament. When City lost in the final of the FA Cup, the manager Roberto Mancini had no excuses any more. Now the next manager knows that two silver medals in one season are not enough to satisfy the board.

Benfica, Lisbon, Portugal: Everything was going in the right direction for Benfica until the two possible gold medals turned into silver in two disastrous matches. First they lost to Porto in the second last match of the league, conceding on the 93^rd minute and thus handing the title in to the winners, and then the same happened 4 days later, when the team lost its 7^th consecutive European final, conceding deep inside the injury time and leaving the Europa League trophy to Chelsea. The fans hope that the third final will not turn into yet another third place on Sunday, the 26^th of May, when Benfica plays against Vitoria Guimaraes in the Portuguese cup final. 

Sporting Braga, Portugal: The team made it to the Portuguese League Cup final and won it thanks to Alan’s penalty in the last minute of the first half. The rest of the season doesn’t impress much, as the team lost the third vital position to Pacos de Ferreira and will not be a part of the Champions League next season. 

Champions League 2012-13: One week to go

With only one week away from the Champions League final, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern will play their last Bundesliga matches of the season on Saturday. As it has been obvious for quite a while now, Bayern has secured the title, and Borussia has earned the silver medals.

The Dortmund side confirmed this achievement after saving the match in Wolfsburg, where the team was losing 3 goals by 1 six minutes before the final whistle, when Juergen Klopp introduced the midfielder Moritz Leitner instead of the defender Felipe Santana. The change of the formation helped the man in great form, Marco Reus, score twice. The first goal of the match was scored by Sven Bender only after 4 minutes of play.

In the season’s last match at Allianz Arena Bayern’s manager Jupp Heynckes let the main players shine in front of the home crowd. The champions won 3-0, with the goals coming in the last 20 minutes of the match. Thomas Mueller, Xherdan Shaqiri and Luiz Gustavo added their names on the scoreboard. It was after this match against Augsburg that the Munich team received the gold medals.     

The last matchday will bring Hoffenheim to Dortmund, while Bayern will travel to Monchengladbach to meet the other Borussia. The main intrigue of the tournament is the question of the league topscorer. Robert Lewandowski’s competitor Stefan Kiessling of Bayer is 1 goal ahead, so the Polish striker has got a task to do this Saturday.  

Club	Last Matches	Next match	Position in the domestic league
Bayern (Germany)	11.05 Augsburg (H) 3-0	18.05 Borussia M. (A)	1
Borussia D. (Germany)	11.05 Wolfsburg (A) 3-3	18.05 Hoffenheim (H)	2

Champions League 2012-13: The week of the Borussia Dortmund-Bayern match

The last weekend was special for the European football in terms that the two Champions League finalists were going to meet in a Bundesliga match. Both Borussia Dortmund and Bayern had no problems to solve, but who said the match didn’t decide anything?

Although most of the Champions League heroes were not on the pitch from the first minutes at the Signal Iduna Park, the atmosphere was more than nervous, as if the winner would get any advantage before the Champions League final.

The home side, as expected, was more enthusiastic, while the task for the visitors was keeping their face. The first half got famous for Kevin Grosskreutz’s and Mario Gomez’s goals. But it was the second half that revealed the main intentions of the teams towards each other. The accelerator was Robert Lewandowski’s penalty, which was saved by Manuel Neuer. The incident brought lots of emotions in, and it was Bayern’s Rafinha, who became the first victim of those. The defender got 2 yellow cards in a spell of 2 minutes and got expulsed only 4 minutes after the penalty episode. Afterwards he tried to explain Blaszczykowski what a moron the Pole was, had to hear some comments from Juergen Klopp, who got involved in lessons about manners on the bench instructed by Matthias Sammer, now representing Bayern’s camp. The episode was followed by clashes between Boateng and Lewandowski, Mueller and Santana, while Schieber was close to shoot Neuer’s head instead of the ball. As for the match itself, Jupp Heynckes removed Mario Gomez in favor of Emre Can, anticipating Marco Reus’s entrance minutes later. The young German created two great chances for Julian Schieber, but the forward showed precisely why Lewandowski was always the favorite to appear in Juergen Klopp’s starting line-up.  

The rehearsal ended 1-1. The teams will meet at Wembley very soon.

As for the upcoming weekend, Bayern will host Augsburg, a team still having some chances to remain in the Bundesliga for the next season, and Borussia will travel to Wolfsburg, where they will try to earn the last point necessary to secure the silver medals for this season.

Club	Last Matches	Next match	Position in the domestic league
Bayern (Germany)	04.05 Borussia D. (A) 1-1	11.05 Augsburg (H)	1
Borussia D. (Germany)	04.05 Bayern (H) 1-1	11.05 Wolfsburg (A)	2

Champions League 2012-13: The week between the semifinals

 Not many experts would bet on a German final in this season’s Champions League. The two German clubs Borussia Dortmund and Bayern have been exceptional this season, both winning their Champions League groups and then reaching the Wembley-final. They eliminated the two Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona, which means that our focus before the final match is going to be the German Bundesliga only.

Borussia and Bayern have secured their places in the next season’s Champions League. The two teams have no problems to solve in the domestic league. Bayern was already unreachable a month ago, while Borussia is 8 points clear in the fight for the second place. With three matches remaining, Juergen Klopp’s team is unlikely to give this advantage away.

The teams were in the middle of Champions League semifinal encounters last weekend, as they met their Bundesliga Day 31 opponents. They took it easy, but secured three points in these matches. Bayern won against Freiburg, thanks to Xherdan Shaqiri’s sole goal. Borussia travelled to Eintracht, where Nuri Sahin and Jakub Blaszczykowski scored goals on the 20^th and 70^th minutes respectively, to win by two goals to one.

This weekend could have been special, as Borussia is going to host Bayern, but the teams, as mentioned above, have no reasons to fight until the last minute, especially after tough Champions League matches during the week. Borussia’s manager Juergen Klopp has already commented, that a loss in this match will be acceptable, or it will at least be “the sweetest of all defeats”, as he mentioned. For those who don’t follow Bundesliga much this can be an important chance to watch the two big clubs clash before they show up in London for the Champions League final.

Club	Last Matches	Next match	Position in the domestic league
Bayern (Germany)	27.04 Freiburg (H) 1-0 01.05 Barcelona (A) 3-0	04.05 Borussia D. (A)	1
Borussia D. (Germany)	27.04 Fortuna (A) 2-1 30.04 Real Madrid (A) 0-2	04.05 Bayern (H)	2

Champions League 2012-13: Before the second leg of the semifinals, Part II

It turned to be that Bayern had never forgotten the 4-0 defeat in the quarterfinals 4 years ago. Now they took the revenge in an even more important match.

Bayern, as in the matches against Juventus, was dominant for the whole match. Unlike against Juventus, now they sat too deep, letting Barcelona come in and leave a chance for Bayern to smash the damaged defense. But they were too compact in their half and never made mistakes. There is not much to discuss about the defensive abilities of the backs, as they were only seen during the corners in front of Barcelona’s goal. The midfielders were the heroes of the match. Javi Martinez and Bastian Schweinsteiger, as many of their teammates, had a perfect match. They never let Xavi, Iniesta and even Messi act. The wingers, especially Robben, worked too hard. The Dutchman had a great match, becoming a huge defensive help for David Alaba in the right wing. He was reasonable when attacking. It was him crossing from the right corners, two of which turned into scorings. The Dutchman finally scored himself, making the score 3-0. The same can be told about Mario Gomez, who, as Robben, was only been selected for the match due to the circumstances. But he was running back and forth, to prove Jupp Heynckes he was not worse than Mandzukic. He scored his goal, too. And of course, the best man was Thomas Mueller, who, despite being another type of a player than Kroos, made the match. He created the goals and scored twice, doing the last one after he had already asked for a substitution. Had Bayern had Kroos in the squad, some counterattacks could have turned into scorings, but Mueller couldn’t pass correctly in couple of situations. First half statistics of 35-65% ball possession and corners 8-2 were the pattern to be continued in the second half. These figures, together with the score of 4-0, might tell the story of the match. Jupp Heynckes gets 10 out of 10 for this match. He introduced an especially hard working, disciplined, balanced team, with players being in such physical conditions, that they were equally fresh before and after 90 minutes of an electric match.   

Barcelona never woke up. The team was never given a chance to advance further than the center of the pitch. Barca, unlike Bayern, were periodically making wrong passes and conceding handballs, the last ones staying unnoticed by the referee Kassai. Tito Vilanova didn’t even know what to do. He gave up after the first half, not even considering substitutions. Barcelona slipped once in the round of 16, then twice, in the quarterfinals, but this was Munich! There are less than 3% chances for Barcelona to reach the final, as the team didn’t even manage to score a goal in the first leg, a conceded one from Bayern will require six scored. There is no need to discuss the tactics of the teams for that upcoming semifinal second leg.