“Barcelona” got into the next “Bavaria” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 170 (7371) of 09/15/2022
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In the second round of the Champions League group stage, Barcelona continued the tradition of losing matches against Bayern. This time, unlike the three previous clashes, she lost to her at least not with a devastating score. But this circumstance hardly makes a 0-2 defeat less painful for the Catalans. After all, circumstances – the form of rivals, as well as the fact that the recent leader of the rivals Robert Lewandowski played for Barcelona – insisted that the strange series should end.
The result of this match in Group C was doomed to turn into a subject of detailed analysis, despite the fact that, out of context, let’s say, nothing extraordinary happened in Munich. One football giant, playing at home, beat another giant. Bayern, who finished away with Inter a week ago, with six points after two rounds, confirms the status of the quartet favorite, which is waiting for an easy walk to the playoffs. But also about “Barcelona”, which defeated the Czech “Victoria” in the starting round, you can’t say that it “hung”. No disaster in terms of strategy.
But the fact of the matter is that you can’t get away from the context. And he is very strange.
“Uncomfortable opponent” is an ancient football cliché that is not so artificial, perhaps. And a fresh segment of the confrontation between Barcelona and Bayern just convincingly confirms its relevance.
It seems that there are two equal clubs, which, in theory, should share points – well, more or less in the same proportion. But lately, Bayern get them all the time. And most importantly, how.
The series started in 2015 when these clubs met in the semi-finals of the Champions League. More precisely, in the return semi-final match, which Bayern won – 3:2. That her success sounded quiet, given that in the first meeting the Catalans, who took the most prestigious European Cup a little later, defeated the Munich team to smithereens – 3:0. But the continuation of the series was much more sonorous.
Teams in 2020 crossed in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. Due to the pandemic in the three-year-old draw, the play-off confrontations were reduced to a single match, and Bayern won it, shocking everyone, with a score of 8:2. Humiliation worse in the history of Barcelona, it seems, did not happen.
A year ago, as now, the giants fought at the group stage. And everything again turned out to be a terrible disaster for Barcelona. She lost twice 0-3, and the goal difference in both matches, in general, correlated well with the overall impressions of the game.
In this sense, the fifth consecutive loss of Barcelona to Bayern can be considered even a small step forward. After all, at least the score wasn’t big. But hardly for those who are worried about the Catalans, the numbers have made the misfire less painful.
Bayern’s three previous successes against Barcelona could be attributed to a fortunate combination of circumstances for the Bayern side. These matches saw the famous Catalan crisis, including its peak, which resulted in the resignations of coaches and top managers, the flight of Lionel Messi to PSG, an unexpected shortage of funds to renew and strengthen the application, and a painful personnel restructuring.
But before the next meeting, the situation looked almost radically different. Barcelona under new manager Xavi returned game, and also returned financial opportunities by unwinding a chic transfer campaign in the summer. And on the rookie list. found himself a person who knows perfectly the peculiarities of the Bayern game is its former leader Robert Lewandowski. And the performances at the junction of summer and autumn gave no reason to doubt that both the Polish sniper and the team as a whole are in excellent shape.
But there were strong doubts about the tone of Bayern. Strictly speaking, the impression was created that it was the Munich team, who in the German championship three rounds in a row diverged in peace with not so great opponents – Borussia Monchengladbach, Union and Stuttgart, approaching the match in a crisis. That is, there were plenty of hints that the series of breakdowns would end.
But they still flatly refused to come true, despite the fact that the guests really didn’t exactly resemble the Barcelona that Bavaria meekly surrendered in 2020 and 2021. Moreover, for some time they looked like a team ready to brutally avenge Munich for slaps in the face. But in the first half, the constantly scoring Lewandowski for some reason left the effectiveness, and he did not realize all three good chances that fell to him. Pedri, shooting the Bavarian goal, hit the post, and referee Danny Makkeli chose not to notice a foul in the penalty area on the Catalan Ousmane Dembele from Alfonso Davis, although some Munich players – for example, Luca Hernandez – honestly admitted that there was a penalty in that episode.
Squandering the chances of “Barcelona” in the second half ran into the “explosion” in the performance of Bayern and goals scored shortly after the break with an interval of five minutes by Hernandez and Leroy Zane. And the series that had just promised to sink into oblivion continued to live, great, apparently, irritating Barcelona fans and warming the hearts of Munich fans.
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