Barcelona will face Bayern Munich on Wednesday night. This match is expected to be the match of the year as these two are arguably the biggest and best teams in Europe at the moment.
Barcelona will be coming into the Bayern game on a high after winning their last two games 6-0 and 8-0 against Getafe and Cordoba respectively.
Barcelona vs Bayern Munich: The fight of the top dogs
Barcelona have been playing at the highest possible level that Luis Enrique could have possibly asked for ever since the start of the New Year. They sit top of the La Liga table, but are only two points ahead of rivals Real Madrid. They are in the final of the Copa Del Rey, which will be played at the Camp Nou.
Bayern Munich on the other hand are coming into this game with two disappointing results in one week. They lost in the DFB-Pokal semi-finals vs Borussia Dortmund in penalties, and then lost to Bayer Leverkusen 2-0 in the Bundesliga (which they have already won for the 25th time).
But just because they are facing a run of bad form, it doesn’t mean they will necessarily lose out on the Champions League. If anything, the Bavarians will be favourites coming into the game due to their sheer superiority in modern football.
As I mentioned before, they have already won the Bundesliga and were knocked out of the DFB-Pokal, and this can only mean one thing: they will focus on the Champions League. The Champions League is literally the only competition Pep Guardiola has to set his sights on, and that can make a team very dangerous.
Barcelona will have a full squad to choose from, meaning Luis Enrique will most likely choose his strongest line up. Pep Guardiola, on the other hand, has faced a massive amount of injuries this season and will have to make due with available selections.
Without key players like Robert Lewandowski, Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery, Pep will have to look to Mario Götze and Thomas Muller to put the ball into the back of the net, although this is something they are not unfamiliar with.
Barcelona, though, boast the best attacking trio in the world with Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar. The trio have scored 108 goals between them so far this season and they won’t be planning on stopping soon. They have scored eleven goals between them in the last two matches, showing that they understand each other perfectly; how are Bayern going to stop those three?
A semi-final of this stature is definitely one you cannot miss. Goals are guaranteed and quite frankly, nobody knows which one of these teams will come out on top. This first leg has all the makings of a final.
