BERLIN: Barcelona will try every trick in the book to overturn a 4-0 first-leg deficit against Bayern Munich in their Champions League semifinal return leg on Wednesday (early Thursday, IST), honorary Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer warned on Monday.
Bayern crushed the Spaniards last week in a surprisingly one-sided encounter but Beckenbauer, former player, coach and president of Germany’s most successful club, warned that Barcelona were not ready to surrender.
“Barca will try everything to throw Bayern off balance,” he told a newspaper.
“They will deploy all methods, anything that’s allowed and anything that’s forbidden. They will defend themselves because their pride has been hurt.”
Bayern, leading 1-0 at halftime, played a flawless second half against the former European champions – widely considered the best team in the past five years – last week in Munich to notch up another three goals and take a huge advantage into the second leg in Spain.
“Barca will try to take Bayern’s eyes off their game plan with one-on-one duels.
“The Bayern players should not be drawn into person-al battles,” said the 67-year-old Beckenbauer who won three conse-cutive European Cups with Bayern in the 1970s.
“They will not surrender, they will provoke, they will try all the tricks in the book.”
Bayern, who have already won the Bundesliga and are in the German Cup final, are bidding for an unprecedented treble of titles for a German club.
The Bavarians are also aiming for their third Champions League final in four seasons after losing the 2010 and 2012 finals.
Meanwhile, last week’s thumping Champions League wins for German teams at home to Spanish opponents prompted talk of a power shift in the European game but Bayern Munich midfielder Thomas Mueller believes it is too early to draw such a conclusion.
“They were two extraordinary results,” Mueller told a news conference at Bayern’s team hotel in Barcelona on Tuesday.
“Both those first legs were in Germany and I think the two Spanish teams will be stronger in their own stadiums,” added the 23-year-old Germany international.
“Essentially though it suggests that what has been said the past few years was not rubbish, that German football is on the up,” he said. “It’s fun to be part of that and you can see it in the national team as well.
“But it’s merely a good sign, nothing more and nothing less. Let’s wait and see who gets through to the final.”
Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes, who has experience coaching in Spain at Barca’s great rivals Real, Athletic Bilbao and Tenerife, should have a full squad available for Wednesday’s game, with only defender Dante, who has a cold, a doubt.
A striker himself in his playing days for Borussia Moenchengladbach and Hanover 96, Heynckes said Bayern would not be curbing their attacking instincts.
“We are not a team that just defends,” the 67-year-old, who was born the day after World War II ended in Europe, told a later news conference.
“We are very good defensively, we know that from the Bundesliga and also from European competition,” he added. (Reuters)