Champions League semis: The fallout from midweek

Back then Bayern took from Dortmund the architect of that sole conquest, the manager Ottmar Hitzveld, and now after re-emerging from Dortmund’s shadow (domestically) the Bavarians want to put some distance between the two clubs by taking two gems from the Signal Iduna Park.

Not quite. Yes, Barca won’t scale the heights of old. But they will remain formidable - if they sort the defence

If the Champions League was the benchmark and the powers that be were tasked with singling out a credible winner of the coveted Ballon D’Or, they would be at pains to find one. Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, the dominant forces of this year’s competition, have not produced a standout MVP.

Had the El Classico miracle somehow happened in midweek, the selectors of the biggest individual accolade in world football would only have to wait for the Fat Lady to break into voice at Wembley to declare either one of those two fellas (no prizes for guessing) best of the year, depending on the destiny of Big Ears of course.

The final whistle of the ‘Die Klassiche’ on May 25 will not produce any such obvious winner, and the selectors will most likely be forced into doing a ‘Cannavaro’ and find a more politically correct candidate as they did after the 2006 World Cup.

More than anything though, that is exactly why the German clubs have stolen Spain’s thunder; where Barcelona epitomised ‘team’ strength not so long ago, over the last fortnight they have looked anything but. Bayern and Dortmund have usurped them in those stakes.
Ironically, long before the dust settles on that Wembley hurrah, it is apparent that while the Spaniards have more work to do it is instead the Germans who have already mapped out their paths.

Barcelona
They will not scale the dizzying heights of 2009-2011 any time soon. Back then they seemed to pick up a trophy every three months, deploying aesthetics and efficiency not seen before.

Contrary to premature post-mortem however, they are not going to fall off the radar either for even in their current shape they can still beat almost all of La Liga and more than half of Europe in their sleep; Barcelona do not need so much an overhaul as a re-jig , the philosophy does not need discarding but rekindling and revitalising.

For a side only recently declared the greatest of all time, the humiliation was not only in Bayern’s aggregate score but in their impotence in the absence of Lionel Messi. It was fun watching him score 90 odd goals last year, but for Barcelona’s sake this cannot go on. They have got to find help for him, not just alternative scorers but the way they score too.

Finding the net from beyond the 18-yard area and from set pieces can’t be frowned upon, Bayern do all those and still manage to play beautifully, and the Germans have up to six players on any starting line-up that can score with the regularity permitted by having only one ball and just 90 minutes for every game.

Barcelona have got to re-organise defensively, add some new, hungry blood to the current have-won-it-all lot, and be more welcoming and accommodating in terms of playing style and culture. Cesc Fabregas, Alexis Sanchez, Alex Song, David Villa, Zlatan Ibrahimovich and all recent arrivals cannot all have been mistakes.

Real Madrid
Some of the stuff that Jose Mourinho spewed out in the immediate aftermath of the Dortmund defeat were in really bad taste, but a grim reminder to the club that they have to go about replacing him in a quick but well thought-out manner to avert the post-Mourinho crisis which adds to the Special One’s legend and which he clearly enjoys no matter his outward show of hurt.

Madrid cannot allow for Mourinho’s departure to spark a player-exodus or a dressing room rejection of his successor, for they still have a squad just one good manager and two three players short of the elusive La Decima.

And Florentino Perez ought to revisit the much maligned ‘Zidanes and Pavones’ mantra he tried to adapt at the turn of the century, just get the mix right this time.

Since the arrival of Alfredo di Stefano almost 60 years ago, there have always been glamour foreigners at the Bernabeu, but if they look inward to their B team they can keep the Ronaldos, Benzemas and Ozils in the good company of more Moratas.

Dortmund
If they wish to dine at the table of men as welcome patrons and not just occasion an appearance once every 16 years, Dortmund are going to have to guard their prize assets a lot more jealously than they are currently doing.

Their only Champions League conquest to date was in 1997, and yet their main rivals Bayern (who had already won three by then) are going to contest a fifth final since that time.

Back then Bayern took from Dortmund the architect of that sole conquest, the manager Ottmar Hitzveld, and now after re-emerging from Dortmund’s shadow (domestically) the Bavarians want to put some distance between the two clubs by taking two gems from the Signal Iduna Park.

In consecutive seasons now Dortmund have lost Nurin Sahin (back there on loan), Lukas Barrios, Shinji Kagawa and Mario Gotze, and Robert Lewandowski looks likely to join that list.

Their academy is still churning out raw quality at the moment, and they exploit a national initiative that has culminated in good academies across Germany (for example the midfield class act Ilkay Gundogan was nurtured at Schalke and signed from Nurenberg), but constant selling and top flight success are neither compatible nor sustainable - case in point Ajax.

Bayern
The immediate future has been secured with all the impending arrivals, and the distant future is most guaranteed by perhaps the healthiest financial books in Europe.

But it is first things first for Bayern at Wembley, where they desperately need to right the wrong that is their Champions League finals record. They have lost two finals since their last victory in 2001, and before that they had lost another three finals after their Beckenbauer-inspired hat-trick of the ‘70s.

After Wembley, the challenge then falls in the lap of Pep Guardiola to do what he managed with Barcelona. Frank Rijkaard won the Champions League in 2006 and it was difficult to see how any successor could improve on what Ronaldinho, Eto’o Deco, Guily and co had accomplished.

Yet Guardiola managed to take them to a much higher level with young home-grown charges from La Masia as he created a monster. He will have to find a way of doing that again, albeit differently.

Many have declared the torch passed on to Bayern, the dawn of a new era, the ascension to the throne of the new kings of Europe. Granted Bayern are the strongest team in Europe now and only going to get stronger, but they can’t be the new Barca until they turn that strength into sustained domination.

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