For Bayern, Daniel Van Buyten has returned from injury. He played for the Bayern reserves in a professional match. There are no other worries for Bayern at this point. Holger Badstuber, Luiz Gustavo and David Alaba are all suspended for the match.
For Chelsea, Gary Cahill and David Luiz are presumed to be fit. They did not feature in Chelsea’s last match against Blackburn. Perhaps Roberto Di Matteo will have to wait till the last minute to decide whether he will field these two players. Florent Malouda is doubtful due to a hamstring problem. John Terry, Branislav Ivanovic, Raul Meireles and Ramires are all suspended.
Game Plan Analysis:
Bayern lacks a Plan B. They have played with two slightly different approaches this season. In the first half of the season, they had less possession but played at a faster pace to win. In the second half, they reverted to controlling more possession and playing at a slower pace. They have plenty of speedy players within their ranks nonetheless.
Expect Bayern to attack but take a controlled approach to the game. Unlike in 2010, they perhaps won’t commit the full team to attack. One vital player for Bayern will be Toni Kroos. His position will perhaps be changed with the suspension of Gustavo. He usually connects the back-line, the defensive midfielders and the attackers.
Kroos lacks pace. Whether he will be able to move forward as often as he usually does is doubtful as he will be fielded in defensive midfield unless Jupp Heynckes decides to field Van Buyten at the back and Anatoliy Tymoshchuk in defensive midfield. Thomas Müller will start in the hole behind the striker provided Kroos is in defensive midfield.
Müller gives an absolutely different dimension to the side. He is very intelligent and will often be found in the penalty area. He puts in many crosses and can interchange his position with Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben. Kroos tends to stay in the middle and not drift to the wings.
If Kroos is played in DM, expect Bayern to attack mainly using the wings. Otherwise, Bayern will also attack through the centre as well. Bastian Schweinsteiger will perhaps stay back to prevent Chelsea counters and to shield the defence and only move forward if required.
Chelsea will play on the counter-attack. Ramires was the one who fuelled those counter-attacks and initially, they might try to take control and resort to counters afterwards. Bayern is very vulnerable to counters. Chelsea won’t however commit too many players to the attack as Bayern is quite good in taking back the ball and countering themselves.
Chelsea has the added advantage of having Didier Drogba up front. Mario Gomez is a strong physical centre-forward like Drogba but isn’t in the best of form currently. Drogba needs only one chance to score as he displayed against Barcelona. Recently Gomez has required more chances than usual to find the back of the net.
It should be a classic case of attack vs. defence unless of-course Roberto Di Matteo has other ideas.
Probable Line-ups:
Due to the number of suspended players, it is difficult to predict what the line-up for either side will be. Bayern’s one though perhaps is slightly easier to predict than Chelsea’s.
Bayern: Manuel Neuer; Philipp Lahm- Jerome Boateng- Anatoliy Tymoshchuk- Diego Contento; Bastian Schweinsteiger- Toni Kroos; Arjen Robben- Thomas Müller- Franck Ribery; Mario Gomez
Chelsea: Petr Cech; Jose Bosingwa- Gary Cahill- David Luiz- Ashley Cole; Frank Lampard- Michael Essien; Daniel Sturridge/Fernando Torres- Juan Mata- Florent Malouda; Didier Drogba
Head to Head:
Bayern has been involved in many a great battle in the European Cup down the years. However, Chelsea’s rise corresponded to a time when Bayern was falling. In 2010, Bayern broke a run of nine years without a Champions League semi-final appearance. So, the only meeting between the two sides came when a Felix Magath led Bayern took on a Jose Mourinho led Chelsea in the 2005-06 quarter-finals.
In the first leg, Chelsea triumphed. Bayern was behind in the home leg in the second game but scored two goals in injury time to win the game. However, they failed to force extra time. These are the results of the two meetings:
Chelsea 4-2 Bayern (2005-06 UEFA Champions League quarter-finals, first leg)
Bayern 3-2 Chelsea (2005-06 UEFA Champions League quarter-finals, second leg)
Recent Form Analysis:
Bayern beat Bremen 1-2. They then went to Madrid and despite losing the game 2-1, won the tie. They were perhaps the better side in the match. Iker Casillas recently said that he felt Bayern was the better side over two legs. They absolutely took Köln apart in the last game of the Bundesliga season 1-4. However, a week later, the Bavarians were absolutely demolished by Borussia Dortmund. Not every player seemingly gave their all that day; however there is no excuse for losing a German Cup final 5-2.
Chelsea beat Blackburn 2-1 in their last Premier League outing. They were crushed by Liverpool 4-1 shortly after an FA Cup final victory (2-1) over the same opponents. Chelsea beat QPR 6-1 just after their draw against Barcelona at Camp Nou with Fernando Torres scoring a hat-trick. They then went on to lose to Newcastle courtesy of two goals from Papiss Demba Cisse. In short, Chelsea isn’t coming into the match in the best of form.
Final Thoughts:
All these Bayern players have a lot of big game experience. However, the Germans in the team almost seem to have a habit of ‘choking’. The Germans in the side lost the European Championship final in 2008 and two World Cup semi-finals in 2006 and 2010. Added to that is of-course that Bayern lost the Champions League final in 2010. However, Bayern was the underdog coming into that game and this isn’t the case this time.
Only one English team has ever beaten Norwich. The name might surprise many but it is Norwich who accomplished the feat. Bayern has previously faced English opponents thrice in Champions League finals with just one win and two losses. They lost to Aston Villa in 1982 and Manchester United in 1999. Their sole victory came against Leeds in 1975. Bayern has won all their games at the Allianz Arena this campaign.
Bayern has gone on to win the Champions League three out of the four times they have beaten Real in the semis. Thrice before has a team played a European Cup final in its own backyard. Inter, Roma and Real Madrid are those teams. Inter and Real both won while Roma lost to Liverpool. So Bayern has roughly a 66.67% chance of claiming victory based on this statistic!
A great score for Chelsea will be 0-1. An early goal will set them up to defend perfectly. After the defeat in Berlin, the confidence levels of the Bayern players won’t be the best. For Bayern, an early goal will also do the trick. Bayern has won each and every game in which they have taken the lead except against Napoli in the group stages (1-1).
So, with two days to go, let the excitement begin! We should be in for quite a night on the 19th of May.
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