Even with key stars missing for large portions of the campaign through significant injuries, Bayern Munich have had an outstanding season thus far and are still in a position to secure a treble. Their come-from-behind, 3-2 win at SC Freiburg over the weekend keeps positive momentum rolling into the Real Madrid tie in the Champions League, picking up right where they left off before the March international break a la a 4-0 win over Union Berlin.
In recent history, luck hasn’t always been on Bayern’s
side in their travels to the Santiago Bernabéu, as they’ve not won there for their last four outings. The last time they came out victorious was in the 2011/12 campaign and the infamous penalty shootout in the semifinals in Madrid. In recent seasons, there’s been the drama of Cristiano Ronaldo’s offside goal before the era of VAR, THAT Sven Ulreich mistake, and even Matthijs de Ligt’s ruled out goal in the dying minutes of match – there’s never any shortage of drama when Bayern play in Madrid.
On current form, though, there’s no better time for Bayern to be playing Real Madrid and if any team can knock them out of the Champions League, it’s the German Rekordmeister.
While he was away with the Austrian national team during the international break, Konrad Laimer stressed that he was confident Bayern could get the better of the La Liga giants with the right momentum and luck, the former of which they already have. “We have a very good team, we’re playing very good football. But in the tough 50-50 games against the top teams, you sometimes need momentum, that certain something, to go your way. We’re in a very good situation. Now we’re in April and we’ll play the games we all want to play. We’ll see what happens. Two incredible teams with endless individual quality. We’re playing football and training hard every day for this kind of games. We have every chance to advance. We just have to be better than them on the day,” he told Servus TV News (via @iMiaSanMia).
Heading into leg 1, Bayern are on a thirteen-match unbeaten run across all competitions, and they only failed to win two of those matches – a draw against Hamburg SV and the recent 1-1 draw a Bayer Leverkusen that was overshadowed by the controversial refereeing decisions during the match that saw both Nicolas Jackson and Luis Díaz red carded. For Real Madrid, they just lost to Mallorca, but prior to that, they hadn’t lost since the shock, 1-0 defeat to Getafe at the beginning of March. They’ll also be putting all their eggs in the Champions League basket as they now are unlikely to be able to catch Barcelona in the LaLiga title race.
