Having both doused English hopes of Champions League stardom, German giants Bayern Munich and Spanish titans Real Madrid clash in the first leg of a mouthwatering semi-final at Allianz Arena on Tuesday night.
Thomas Tuchel's troops navigated their way past Arsenal in the last eight, while the 14-time winners of Europe's premier tournament eliminated holders Manchester City in a nerve-jangling penalty shootout.
Match preview
© Reuters
Deposed as perpetual Bundesliga champions, dumped out of the DFB-Pokal at the hands of minnows Saarbrucken and being put to the sword by RB Leipzig in the Super Cup curtain-raiser, Champions League supremacy will be Bayern's only saving grace before Tuchel clears out his Bavarian locker.
FC Hollywood - who will seemingly be led by Ralf Rangnick for 2024-25 - were unable to replicate their previous 5-1 pummellings of Arsenal in the last eight, but a 1-0 second-leg triumph over the Gunners, courtesy of a Joshua Kimmich header, sufficed for Tuchel's side after a gripping 2-2 stalemate in North London.
By prolonging their perfect streak against Arsenal in Champions League knockout contests, a first semi-final since their run to glory in the 2019-20 campaign awaits Tuesday's hosts, who had been eliminated in four consecutive semi-final ties before easing past Lyon in a one-legged contest behind closed doors.
The narrow beating of the Gunners represented the second victory in a four-match winning sequence for Tuchel's side, who have since earned back-to-back Bundesliga successes over Union Berlin (5-1) and Eintracht Frankfurt, scraping past the latter thanks to Harry Kane's 34th and 35th Bundesliga strikes of the campaign.
Also hitting the 400-goal career mark with his match-winning brace at the Allianz Arena, Kane's next mission is to help extend Bayern's brilliant 15-match unbeaten run at home in the Champions League, and the German giants also have three clean sheets to show from their last three European contests on familiar territory.
Not since Paris Saint-Germain's 3-2 triumph almost exactly three years ago have Bayern emerged on the wrong end of the scoreline in a home Champions League match, and either the French champions-elect or Borussia Dortmund shall lie in wait at Wembley if Tuchel's men can extinguish Real dreams of crown number 15.
© Reuters
Such a task is far easier said than done, though, as after their own engrossing goal-laden stalemate with an English behemoth - this one a 3-3 thriller against 2023 winners Man City - Carlo Ancelotti's men held their nerve as Andriy Lunin bravely held his position from 12 yards.
Bailing out Luka Modric after the Croatian fluffed his lines, Lunin's bold decision not to dive paid dividends as he calmly caught Bernardo Silva's appalling attempt, before also thwarting Modric's compatriot Mateo Kovacic en route to making himself the Blancos hero, akin to his senior Thibaut Courtois in the 2022 showpiece.
Also on the brink of recapturing the La Liga title thanks to a mesmerising Clasico success over Barcelona and smash-and-grab 1-0 win over Real Sociedad, courtesy of teenage sensation Arda Guler, Real Madrid arrive in Munich with an 18-game unbeaten run to protect, winning seven of their last eight in all tournaments.
With not a single European loss on their notebook in 2023-24, Ancelotti's men also enter the semi-finals unbeaten in 10 straight Champions League contests, one shy of their all-time record of 11 successive games without defeat in their triumphant 2016-17 campaign.
The omens will therefore be highly promising if Los Blancos can at least take a draw back to base on Tuesday, and the visitors can proudly boast a six-match unbeaten sequence against Bayern in Champions League action, sending them packing in 2013-14, 2016-17 and 2017-18 before their continental coronations in each year.
The plethora of recent knockout matches between Tuesday's competitors means that Bayern vs. Real Madrid is the most played fixture in the history of the Champions League/European Cup with 26 showdowns - 24 of which have been in knockout rounds - but the head-to-head superiority certainly belongs to the men in white.
Team News
© Reuters
Bayern did not miss the banned Alphonso Davies too much in their second leg with Arsenal - Noussair Mazraoui and Raphael Guerreiro marshalled Bukayo Saka to brilliant effect - but the Canada international is now available again after serving his one-match suspension.
That is more than can be said for long-term absentees Sacha Boey (hip), Gabriel Marusic (ACL), Bouna Sarr (ACL) and Tarek Buchmann (hamstring), and while none of the quartet should have started this one anyway, Tuchel is also working around an injury crisis with a plethora of first-team regulars.
Konrad Laimer and Matthijs de Ligt were both victims of the win over Frankfurt with ankle and knee issues respectively, but Tuchel is keeping his fingers crossed that the pair will make it for the first leg, and the former has indeed trained. Jamal Musiala - absent at the weekend with tendon pain - is in the same boat.
Also taking up beds in the overcrowded Bayern infirmary are Leroy Sane (groin), Serge Gnabry (hamstring), Dayot Upamecano (ankle) and Kingsley Coman (groin), although only the latter will definitely miss the first leg as of now, and his fellow wingers Sane and Gnabry have both practiced with the team.
Real Madrid's medical bay is nowhere near as packed as their hosts', and Ancelotti is expected to receive a major boost with the anticipated return of Jude Bellingham, rested for the duel with Sociedad due to a sickness bug.
Rodrygo (illness) and Ferland Mendy (fatigue) have also recovered from their own afflictions, leaving knee victims Courtois and David Alaba as the only occupants of the Bernabeu treatment room, and the former could even return for the showdown with Cadiz on May 4.
For the time being, though, penalty saviour Lunin will guard the posts, while all of Bellingham, Rodrygo and Mendy should be among those drafted back into the visitors' XI after Ancelotti chopped and changed for the Sociedad showdown.
The Italian will be forced into an unwanted alteration at right-back, though, as Dani Carvajal picked up a suspension-inducing yellow card at the Etihad, so Lucas Vazquez - one of the stars of El Clasico - will start in Munich.
Bayern Munich possible starting lineup:
Neuer; Kimmich, Kim, Dier, Davies; Goretzka, Pavlovic; Muller, Musiala, Gnabry; Kane
Real Madrid possible starting lineup:
Lunin; Vazquez, Rudiger, Tchouameni, Mendy; Valverde, Camavinga, Kroos; Bellingham; Rodrygo, Vinicius Junior
We say: Bayern Munich 1-2 Real Madrid
Real Madrid were counting their lucky stars to come away with all three points from their battle with Sociedad, but Ancelotti saw fit to rest many of his first-team regulars, and there is no doubt which semi-finalist will be in better shape on Tuesday.
While the Kane-inspired hosts are always a threat in the final third, Bayern's unenviable injury situation should catch up to them in the first leg against a Real side who almost always find a way in the Champions League, so we expect Los Blancos to take a slender lead back to the Spanish capital.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Ben Knapton
