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.
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