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| Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique |
Thomas Muller collected the ball just outside the area, sized up the
angle and curled a quite beautiful shot into the bottom corner. The Allianz
Arena roared its approval. And then they remembered: just another three needed.
In 15 minutes. Oh dear.
This was an excellent game if you forgot about the scoreline. The real
scoreline that is. Not the one on the night. Bayern Munich went ahead,
Barcelona rallied and took the lead, Munich equalised, Munich won. End to end
stuff.
In reality, nothing happened. Munich started the game needing three
goals to take it to extra time, and ended the game needing three to progress.
The closest they got was an eight minute spell in the first-half when two goals
were needed to force the additional 30 minutes. For 15 minutes of the match
they were four short, for 30 minutes they trailed by five. It was one of those
illusory matches, like the one that Roman Abramovich fell in love with, between
Real Madrid and Manchester United in 2003. That was exhibition stuff, too.
End to end, because United were never really close on aggregate.
Equally, Munich’s fans left this game happy. They salvaged some pride,
put up a good show – but, in truth, didn’t lay a glove on Barcelona. The early
goal only made the Catalans angry. They wrapped the tie up 23 minutes later
and, from there, it was academic.
By the time Muller hit his winner the odd fan was already on the way
home. It gets busy on the A9 near the stadium and everyone knew where this was
heading anyway. Bayern Munich put back in their box at the semi-final stage,
once again. This wasn’t as chastening as last year’s Spanish lesson from Real
Madrid but only because there was less on it to begin with. Madrid came here
shielding a single goal lead, Barcelona had the tie as good as won. ‘One city,
one dream,’ read the large display around the ground, but within 30 minutes
what had unfolded was a waking nightmare.
The widespread wisdom was that Munich needed an early goal but with
hindsight nothing could have been further from the truth. One just after
half-time, and it would have been interesting to see how Barcelona would have
seen out the last 40 minutes – particularly with Luis Suarez off with a
hamstring injury. Yet scoring after seven minutes meant the teams had all the
time in the world to trade blows. By scoring early, Munich merely annoyed a
superior team.
The problem is, Barcelona are simply better at the football Munich wish
to play. A spoiling team might get a lucky break from a set-piece – their one
vulnerability – but take them on at football and it only plays to their
strengths. So Munich rather sweetly blundered in after seven minutes from a
Xabi Alonso corner and paid the price. Medhi Benatia rose unmarked and was
allowed a free header which Marc-Andre ter Stegen could not keep out. The
Allianz Arena went bananas.
Here it was unfolding before their eyes – the greatest comeback in
Champions League history. That dream didn’t last long.
Eight minutes, give or take the odd second. It was a beautiful riposte.
Lionel Messi slid a lovely pass into the path of Suarez who burst through a
leaden back line and drew Manuel Neuer before squaring the ball for Neymar to
tap into an empty net. It would have looked good in meme form on the computer
screen. In the flesh it was quite marvellous. There were Munich chances after
that, quite a few of them, but in the 30th minute Barcelona settled it.
It was a goal that owed something to Wimbledon, and more to the Royal
Ballet. Ter Stegen struck a big kick from his hands for Suarez to chase, which
he did with considerably more vim than those around him. Veering wide to the
right, he delayed his cross until Neymar had got the space he needed in the
middle, and then picked him out, perfectly. Neymar chested the ball down and
also waited for the right moment before finishing smartly past Neuer. With
Messi he now forms the most prolific Champions League scoring partnership since
Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer for Manchester United in
2001-02.
Could it have been different? Well, yes, had Munich taken every chance
presented them. Ter Stegen was excellent in keeping them at bay in the
first-half: a Muller header after 19 minutes, a Robert Lewandowski shot after
27. Muller should have done much better in the 29th minute, Lewandowski after
40, both chances set up by Thiago Alcantara.
In the second-half, Lewandowski made amends, of sorts, with arguably the
goal of the night. Receiving the ball to feet, he got the jump on Javier
Mascherano, switched it from his left to his right and curled it sweetly into
the corner of the net.
On many other European occasions in Bavaria, it would have been a goal
that told of future glory. Here it was a footnote, a trifle, an irrelevance.
Wasted, in many ways. To their credit, Munich kept probing but it was more
through memory than belief.
The best thing about having the finest technical footballers in the
world is that it allows a team to do outrageous things. Like the moment midway
through the first-half when Barcelona had a free-kick 40 yards from Munich’s
goal and, instead of sending everyone up and putting it in the mixer, Messi
side-footed a short pass to Suarez who had four opponents around
him. Stuff like this happens all the time. Players take the initiative;
demand the ball no matter the circumstances. Wonderful angles result, players
get sucked into a Barcelona black hole, moved out of position so deftly it is
as if they are on strings pulled from above.
Pep Guardiola alternated between three and four at the back as he had at
the Nou Camp but neither made much difference. Perhaps he should try another
number. Eight, or ten. It is pointless trying to play Barcelona as equals and
maybe that was Guardiola’s vanity peeking through. He couldn’t bear to try to
throw a blanket over his old team, so he went toe to toe.
Even chasing five at one stage, the home fans still sang, waved their
flags and bounced on demand, but it had rather a hollow ring. Barcelona sliced
through them with surgical precision when it mattered, incisive, insightful,
working furiously when the occasion demanded. In the last 12 minutes of the
first leg and for a quarter of an hour of the first-half here they simply swept
Munich from the board.
It was more than enough, no matter the noise and fury of the locals. If
the Spanish strike holds, this could be Barcelona’s last game for 25 days. It’s fair to say
they’ll be missed.
Source:dailymailsport
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