UEFA Champions League Final: Bayern Munich- Paris St Germain
Bayern beat Olympique Lyonnais 3-0 on Wednesday......
Olympique Lyonnais are definitely surprise semi finalists having seen off Juventus and Manchester City in the last two knockout rounds, two big clubs who are desperately hunting a Champions League title like Jason chasing the Golden Fleece ! Ahead of the latter my notes included ....
No disrespect to OL but they are the dream draw for City, with the French side the weakest team left in the last eight and no real chance that the Sky Blues will underestimate the opposition having taken just one point from two group stage h2h games in 18-19 conceding 4 goals. The French side have also not won in four starts losing 5-1 and 1-0 (after extra time) to PSG , 1-0 to Lille and 2-1 to Juventus in their second leg defeat in Turin eight days ago.
City will ask them a lot more questions than Juve, but OL will be confident of scoring with their h2h record and given that they have found a goal in 14 of 16 Champions League games, including away to Juve, Man City, Leipzig and Barcelona.
Lyon led, City equalised, then Raheem Sterling who has been very consistent in front of goal this season missed an absolute sitter of an open goal and OL retook the lead 59 seconds later with a goal that everyone apart from the referee and VAR felt should have been disallowed ! But it was a very famous and deserved win for OL and left a lot for City and Pep Guardiola to think about.
Bayern Munich destroyed Barcelona 8-2 on Friday to continue their incredible run and competition record this season ..........
Both teams are very motivated to win this tournament , all remaining teams are, but watching Real Madrid win three Champions League's in a row since Barcelona last took home the trophy has been very painful viewing for the Catalan giants. For Bayern it is just one CL in 19 years, through which they have reached the last eight on 13 occasions, 7 semi finals and three finals. They are looking to reach the last four tonight for the 8th time in just 11 seasons, an incredible record of consistency. I have some issues with Barcelona which I spoke of before their R16 second leg home game with Napoli last midweek ..............
Barcelona are unbeaten in their last 35 Champions League matches on home soil, but this will have a very different feeling inside an empty Camp Nou and the hosts have been disappointing post lockdown, not handling the pressure well and failing to beat the two top 4 opponents they faced, scoring zero or one goal in 5 of their last 9 which included a 2-1 home defeat to Osasuna who had nothing at stake and who scored their winner with 10 men after playing the final 20 minutes a man short.
Yesterday in my Real Madrid notes I wrote............After that loss things went a lot better for Real and they were 11-1-1 over their final 13 La Liga starts to take the title by 5 points. They had 87 points , Barcelona 82 , it was Real's 4th lowest total over the last 11 seasons and the joint lowest winning total in 12 years. It was Barce's lowest tally since 2007-08, five less than their second lowest haul subsequently and this feels like a substandard La Liga and that the Big 2 are some way below the level we always expect from both.
We say little last night to dissuade thoughts of a drop in quality from the big two in Spain.
They won that 3-1 and were up by three shortly before the break, but looked nervous in the opening exchanges, were still far away from their best and needed some Messi magic to get the win, that is always an option and possible outcome of course, but to my mind Barcelona look some way short of Bayern and Man City and I would be very surprised if they made the final by getting past both and that is the task ahead of them.
Bayern beat Chelsea 4-1 last week (notes under the "good luck" sign off) to complete a 7-1 aggregate rout, add in the 10 they scored against last year's CL finalist Tottenham and they have really peaked in the best competition in the world. The lack of real domestic competition has cost them greatly at the last 8 stage onwards in recent years, but German club football has improved and the top 5 were all decent and Lepzig also making the CL quarter finals (now semis) and Dortmund the last 16 , so that was not the case this season and the enforced break probably helped them more than most and allowed them to peak later than usual. Red Bulls win last night should further motivate Bayern and I expect them to win.
We have seen German teams before in this kind of form, they are cold, heartless, killing machines, show no compassion (none of this is bad BTW !) and should not be opposed, as until someone stands up to them, no handicap line is ever going to be big enough ! You will get chances against them as they have total belief in their game and ability, just want to attack for whatever part of the 95-98 minutes they have the ball and are not overly worried should they concede. Barce were awful and scored twice, Chelsea were injury/suspension hit and overrun but scored and should probably have had another, Leverkusen scored twice in the DFB Pokal final their last domestic game, but a goal conceded only really delays the inevitable and is like hitting the odd sleeping policeman (speed bump) on a 100km drive !
PSG beat RB Leipzig by the same 3-0 scoreline on Tuesday in their semi-final.......
I sided with PSG against Atalanta last week ............
Atalanta have statistically been the best team in Italy for the last two seasons , they have scored freely and played open, flowing football which has been a joy to watch, but they have finished third each time and it does still feel as though they have a bit of an inferiority complex against the very best teams. They have not beaten Juventus for 30 games, losing 24 of those and have a sub 30% win rate against the other Big 6 teams, it stops them making the next step up, but in truth it is unlikely to happen. A lowly budget and to a degree negative mindset stops that and I saw a recent interview with head coach Gian Piero Gasperiniwhere he highlighted the latter.
“We said qualifying for the Champions League for the second year in a row was our ultimate aim, so after that finishing third or second is about prestige, but the objective remains the same.“I thought we started quite strong this season, then of course the Champions League took some energy out of us." The real points we dropped were in the games with Lazio, Juventus and Inter, but then we never did target the Serie A title.“We’ve raised the bar and are hitting our targets anyway. "We can’t think of the Scudetto.
They did struggle a little over the closing 2-3 weeks of the campaign, losing to Inter (it was before Gasperini's interview) and scoring just 5 times in 5 starts, with the goals drying up after scoring 2.82 pg up to that point and I do worry they might have hit a wall.
I do not think this is a good match up for Atalanta's man marking style, it plays into the hands of PSG's strength and fluidity on offense when they can often have five attackers and the Italian back three are too keen at times to go hunting the ball. Add in the Parisians far greater Champions League experience and huge desire to win this competition and this massive funding, plus perhaps a slight inferiority complex for Atalanta when the truly big games come around and maybe a drop in form/intensity from them, and it has to be PSG.
Mauro Icardi has six goals in his last five appearances against Atalanta.
Kylian Mbappe was initially ruled out after suffering an injury against Lyon in their League Cup final victory on July 31, but he returned to training on Sunday, PSG are at least optimistic he can be involved to some degree and he is giving a thumbs up in every photo/video I have seen of him this week.
The won 2-1 coming from behind to take the win with two late goals, there was no "fluidity on offense" for PSG that I referred to above, at least not until Kylian Mbappe changed the game after coming off the bench and supplied Neymar with some much needed help. The Brazilian got precious little prior to that, with Icardi and Pablo Sarabia not only being poor, but not exactly busting a gut to assist Neymar much. The Brazilian superstar had an odd game, looked really good and was head and shoulders (and most of his torso) above everyone else on the pitch, at least until the arrival of Mbappe, but left his shooting boots in Paris and was guilty of two unbelievable misses , the first is difficult to explain if you did not see it. He was through on goal and just had to slide the ball into the net and somehow missed by some five metres, I must have watched the incident 20 times and am still not certain how he managed it !
But he kept his head up and continued to try and drive his largely lethargic team mates forward, his 16 completed dribbles were the most in a Champions League game since Lionel Messi for Barcelona against Manchester United in April 2008 and was when Messi and Barce were good ! Only joking, at least about the player !
Mbappe is starting tonight and I think we will see a more upbeat showing from the other nine players , at the end of the day if Neymar had taken his chances and on almost any other occasion he might have scored a hat-trick, PSG would have eased home. Angel Di Maria is also available again after frustratingly sitting out his ban against Atalanta on the sidelines.
Leipzig beat Atletico Madrid in the quarter finals and I do not want to take anything away from them, they were deserved winners , but it was a cowardly performance from the Spanish side who, after equalising and turning the tide of the game in their favour and looking set to win, went back into their defensive /spoiler shell and were rightly punished.
Ahead of that game I spoke about Leipzig's "issues" ........... The extended season and break has hardly helped RB Leipzig much, the first has cost them star player Timo Werner who has already moved to Chelsea and the second has hindered their high intensity hard press which is difficult to just turn off and on and requires the team to be at full fitness, which they are not . Four of Leipzig's last eight Champions League goals have come from the penalty spot and of the four from open play, two were provided by Werner. This is a step up for RBL the only other top eight team they have faced in the competition is Lyon and they conceded twice in each (2-2, 0-2). They have a number of key players carrying knocks, if Yussuf Poulsen were to miss out, for instance, they would be without 39 goals and 26 assists (the totals he and Werner have amassed this season).
Poulson played and Leipzig were brave, but not asked enough questions offensively by Atletico and that should not be the case this evening.
Paris SG have progressed from all three of their European knockout ties with German opponents, including eliminating Borussia Dortmund in this year’s Champions League Last 16.They have scored in 33 straight CL games and will equal Real Madrid's all time record should they score this evening. I think they will and take the classy big game players of PSG to step up.
The final...........
I have no issues with Bayern as favourites for tonight's game, they score for fun and are relentless and there is much to like about the fact they never sit on a lead, but they have looked shambolic defensively at times and Lyon were very wasteful and squandered several BC's, a couple of which were far easy to score than miss. I doubt PSG will do likewise, especially if Neymar can find his shooting boots which have been missing for the last two games, but his overall play has otherwise been what we would expect given his superstar status. Now that he has Di Maria and Mbappe to share the burden, the best player in this game will have help and more space to work in and perhaps most importantly of all, the Brazilian looks happy at PSG for perhaps the first time since he joined. Marco Verratti is also available again and things seem to be going the Parisian way.
PSG have a German head coach who knows Bayern as well as most opposition managers, will be playing in the Estádio da Luz for the third straight game and have had an extra 24 hours to rest up and more importantly, prepare. Looking forward to what should be a game to savour.
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Good luck !
