BARCELONA,
Spain — As nights of soccer watching go, it was an excellent one for
shampooing your hair. Or organizing your T-shirt collection. Or maybe
even polishing off that last chunk of “War and Peace” that you’d been
putting off.
Whatever
the alternative, it was surely better than the two Champions League
matches on Tuesday night — one in Spain, one in Germany — that failed to
deliver the scintillating drama one might hope for from two
quarterfinal second legs. Were there goals? Sure, there were goals. Many
of them were even pretty, a panoply of glittering lights within the
gray air of inevitability. But these were the exceptions. As Bayern
Munich wasted Porto, 6-1, to complete a 7-4 aggregate rout, and Barcelona shredded Paris St.-Germain, 2-0 (5-1 on aggregate), there was no mystery, no tension, no titanic clashing of European giants.
There
was only the dullness of a blowout (times two) and, ultimately, the
tantalizing prospect of an explosive matchup in the offing.
The
draw for the semifinals is Friday. If the soccer gods have a sense of
poetry (or humor), Bayern Munich and Barcelona will be paired, pitting
two juggernauts against each other before anything can happen to deny us
the matchup.
The
teams deserve it. Three years ago, Pep Guardiola left Barcelona after a
four-year spell as manager that brought the Catalans three league
championships and two Champions League trophies. It was a period that
many regard as one of the most dominant by any single club, and it is
generally regarded as the time when Barcelona played some of the most
beautiful soccer in the world.
After
a year’s sabbatical in New York, Guardiola became the manager at Bayern
Munich. In his first two seasons, he has had resounding success in the
Bundesliga — a league title last year and another almost certain this
year — and in the German Cup, which Bayern is also in position to win
for a third straight year. But Guardiola was embarrassed in the 2014 Champions League semifinals
by Real Madrid and lost the first leg of this year’s quarterfinal to
Porto, 3-1 — a result which prompted a rash of hand-wringing and even
led to the bizarre resignation of Munich’s longtime team physician.
“If
you win, you’re a genius. If you lose, you have lots of problems, but
that’s the nature of my job,” Guardiola said before Tuesday’s game. “I
know which club I am at; it isn’t enough to win the Bundesliga and the
Cup.”
He
went on to add that there is a similar sentiment at Barcelona, where
results since Guardiola’s departure have been fine by most standards —
one league title and a Spanish Supercup victory — but are nonetheless
seen as lacking since the coaches (Luis Enrique is currently in charge)
have failed to replicate Guardiola’s brand of total supremacy.
In
many ways, the Champions League is what will define this season for
both Barcelona and Bayern. Guardiola’s team is a virtual lock to win the
Bundesliga, and Barcelona, while having more work to do, is still in
the lead in La Liga with six games to play. Both are also expected to
play in their respective domestic cup finals, where they would surely be
the favorites. So if what Guardiola said is true — “only a treble is
enough” — then it would be delicious, and fitting, if one had to beat
the other along the way.
That
they both appear to be at their best these days only makes it all the
better. Bayern Munich was listless, sure, in the first leg against Porto
— though much of the damage was caused by two inexplicable mistakes by
the veteran defender Dante — but Tuesday’s rout brought to mind
domination not seen since Germany’s basting of Brazil at last summer’s
World Cup.
It
was 5-0 after 36 minutes, the Bavarians barely letting Porto get a
whiff of the ball, let alone a sniff at goal. Thiago Alcantara was
whimsical; Thomas Müller and Robert Lewandowski were lethal. Guardiola
was so excited by the display that he even ripped his pants while
jumping around in celebration.
“It’s hard to find any words,” Müller said afterward. “It couldn’t have gone any better. We never thought we’d play like that.”
Barcelona,
meanwhile, simply continued the blitzing it began in Paris last week.
In that game, P.S.G. was without striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic and
midfielder Marco Verratti; this time, both were back but it was hard to
tell since it seemed no P.S.G. player did much more than chasing after
his Barcelona counterpart.
“They deserved to qualify,” P.S.G. defender David Luiz said.
That
was putting it mildly. Andrés Iniesta embarrassed P.S.G. with a weaving
run through half the field before setting up Neymar for a silky finish
after 14 minutes. When Neymar scored his second 20 minutes later even
P.S.G.’s coach, Laurent Blanc, looked as if he wouldn’t have minded
calling it a night.
Alas,
both games went the full 90 minutes, leaving plenty of time for fans to
do more important things such as clean out their email inboxes or
delete photos from their phones. Certainly there was little need to
watch.
It
was more enlightening to think about the possibilities. The last — and
only — time that Guardiola faced Barcelona with Bayern Munich was in his
very first game in charge, a charity exhibition between the teams that
was little more than a glorified preseason runaround.
That
game — which Munich won — meant nothing. This one, at the very least,
would be more compelling than a night of organizing T-shirts.
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