Bayern Munich dominates Barcelona in Champions League semi-final
Going in to today’s matchup at Camp Nou in Barcelona, Spain Barcelona was down 4-0 in aggregate. In order to advance Barcelona would have to win 5-0 or tie 4-0 and hope to win in extra time, but those were very unlikely outcomes. In the first leg of this tie Bayern Munich dominated Barcelona and even got away with two controversial goals in the process.
Today was much of the same, it looked like Barcelona manager Tito Vilanova knew his side couldn’t overcome such a deficit so he didn’t risk playing Lionel Messi. With no Messi Barcelona’s chance of pulling off the impossible were even greater.
The nail in the coffin today was Arjen Robben’s 49th minute curler to put the aggregate 5-0. From then on Bayern continued to show their dominance while saving some of their players from yellow card suspension in the process. One of the weirder sights today was that Lionel Messi, Xavi, and Iniesta were all on the bench at the same time towards the end of the game. Football fans would be hard pressed to remember a time when all three of those men were off the field.
Bayern Munich now gets to take fellow German club Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League Final at Wembley Stadium on May 25th in England. The two Bundesliga teams will face off in league play this Saturday to give us a little preview of what we may see later in the month.
– John McAuliffe (@John_Mac310)
