Champions League 2012-13: Before the first leg of the semifinals, Part I

Now, when the Champions League 2012-13 quarterfinals are a history, it is time to look back at these matches and make the conclusions before the epic semifinals kick-off.

Estimated by pundits, only Bayern had to experience problems in the quarterfinals, while Borussia, Real and Barcelona had to eliminate their opponents easily. The four mentioned teams turned stronger than the others, but the way they won their ties was exactly opposite to expectations. Borussia was deeply buried in the home match against Malaga as they produced a sensational comeback, scoring twice in the injury time. Barcelona was outplayed by PSG, until Lionel Messi came out of the bench and settled the necessary equalizer. Real was not expected to have any trouble in Istanbul, but the Turkish fans were there to push their heroes forward and see them score three in the second half. It was not enough for Real to get eliminated, but Mourinho’s Real doesn’t concede so many every week either. And only Bayern had no problems in the quarterfinals, being the better of two sides literally from the first minute of the tie. The second leg matches produced 14 goals, some of which were pearls. Especially beautiful was Didier Drogba’s back heel goal, but the element of back heel and many others were present in Borussia’s first goal to Malaga, which was one of the most astonishing counterattacks of the tournament. A team scoring such quick goals and producing such incredible comebacks fully deserves its place in a Champions League semifinal. Enjoy that goal, finished by Robert Lewandowski.

  

Scoring two goals in Istanbul, Cristiano Ronaldo is now too far to be caught by competitors. The Portuguese has registered 11 goals in 10 Champions League matches, while Lionel Messi has only scored 8 times in 10 matches. The eliminated Burak Yilmaz is still standing in between the two, as the Turkish striker played a match less than Messi. Borussia’s Lewandowski is on the 4^th place with 6 goals.

The table showing the ranking of the leagues is very close to take its final shape. After Turkey moved one position up, the places from 3 to 17 are not going to change any more. Now it is about the first two places, as only Spanish and German teams are left in the tournament. Spain has got an advantage of 9 points, so the Germans need to be exceptional to overtake the first position.

	League	Pts.
1 (-)	Spain (2)	66
2 (-)	Germany (2)	57
3 (-)	England (0)	39
4 (-)	Italy (0)	29
5 (-)	Portugal (0)	27
6 (-)	France (0)	26
7 (+1)	Turkey (0)	17
8 (-1)	Ukraine (0)	16
9 (-)	Romania (0)	10
10 (-)	Scotland (0)	10
11 (-)	Russia (0)	10
12 (-)	Greece (0)	9
13 (-)	Belarus (0)	6
14 (-)	Belgium (0)	5
15 (-)	Netherlands (0)	4
16 (-)	Croatia (0)	1
17 (-)	Denmark (0)	1

RANKING BEFORE THE FIRST LEG OF SEMIFINALS

Place	Club	Chance to Win The Cup
1 (-)	Real Madrid (Spain)	28,6%
2 (-)	Bayern (Germany)	26,3%
3 (-)	FC Barcelona (Spain)	24,8%
4 (-)	Borussia D. (Germany)	20,3%

Only Borussia has yet to be defeated in this tournament. The reason why Real and Bayern stand higher in the ranking is that they have a tiny advantage over their semifinal opponents, which gives them a better chance to appear in the final.

The first Champions League 2012-13 semifinal will take place in Munich, where the last season’s Chelsea victims Bayern and Barcelona will meet. Both of the teams are determined to go all the way and anything but the “cup with big ears” will be a fiasco.

Bayern is the team being in the best form. The Munich team has won 8 out of 8 matches played after the Champions League defeat to Arsenal in March. Bayern players have scored 32 times in these 8 matches. They have already won the league title, but they move on towards the other two golden awards, with the Champions League being the top priority.

Bayern was too strong for Juventus in the quarterfinals, so the team dominated from the first minutes of the first leg until the final whistle in Turin. And here we are talking about the strongest team Bayern had met in this Champions League by then.

The average of 4 goals in a match shows how unstoppable their attack is. The fact that Mario Gomez and Claudio Pizarro keep on scoring hat-tricks and still not appearing in the starting line-up speaks about the strength of the attackers. Ribery, Robben, Mueller and Mandzukic don’t notice their opponents. The midfield is calmly controlled by Bastian Schweinsteiger  and Javi Martinez. They are ready to eliminate Xavi, as they did it to Pirlo. There is no need to talk about fantastic Neuer, Lahm and Dante, who have been praised during the whole season. Now they have the upcoming star David Alaba next to them, who has been exceptional in the matches against Juventus. Bayern was quick, Bayern was firm and Bayern was pressing like a hurricane in these quarterfinals.

We need to dig too deep to find a weakness in this side. The absence of Toni Kroos hasn’t been a problem for the team so far, but if Barcelona is there to create problems for Bayern, they might lack Kroos’s creativity in front. Heynckes has tried to solve the problem by moving Mueller to the center and introducing Robben in the right. Anyway, Thomas Mueller is another type of a player and he is most useful when the team doesn’t depend on his vision. Arjen Robben hasn’t found his best shape since he missed a couple of crucial penalties a year ago. The Dutchman scores, creates chances, but the manager can never rely on him when it is time to use the created chances.

The team will say goodbye to the current manager Jupp Heynckes this summer, to welcome Barcleona’s previous boss Pepp Guardiola.    

As for Guardiola’s previous team, not everything has been fantastic for Barcelona so far. The team is out of the domestic cup, they were two times close to being eliminated from the Champions League, and Lionel Messi is still recovering from his injury. Barcelona manager has a problem to solve here, as the matches against Milan and PSG revealed several huge problems about the team. The most important of these was the dependence of the team of Lionel Messi and not Xavi Hernandez, as the myths claimed previously. We need to talk about the defensive problems of the team, too.

But this is still Barcelona, the team who has changed the football world in the past decade. There is no cure against their ball possession and Tito Vilanova has come up with several fresh ideas during the season. One of those was the changes he made in the last thirty minutes of the home match against PSG. The first one was Messi, who played unusually deep and surprised PSG in this. However, Messi’s introduction was clear and it overshadowed the other substitution of Vilanova, who sent Marc Bartra in to substitute Adriano. The youngster had a huge influence in the back, helping Pique to deliver a good defensive performance in the minutes when PSG’s tired attackers were desperately trying to score the second goal.

The team is leading in the Spanish League and they need 6 points in 6 matches to return the title. They don’t have to think about anything else than Champions League for the remaining season, so here is where they have an advantage over Bayern.

The match in Munich is not going to decide the finalist, and the two managers know about this. Whatever we see on the pitch on Tuesday is going to be something extraordinary. Bayern is going to try to do what Milan did a couple of months ago, when they blocked the breathing air for Barcelona. Barcelona is now more or less ready to this. But Bayern is the first team in Barcelona’s way to be strong enough to press during 90 minutes. In this particular match there is a big chance for Bayern to cheat Barcelona defenders and score, despite Kroos’s and Mandzukic’s absence. As for Barcelona, their strength is at Nou Kamp. They will have to keep their face before the second leg and try to make use of their quick low passes, which might be a problem for Bayern’s tall center backs. Bayern’s chance to appear at Wembley is about 5% more, as the team is more organized and doesn’t depend on any particular players.