Bayern Munich vs FC Barcelona Prediction, Preview & Betting Tips

Preview

Joel Amorim May 11, 2015 @ 12:22 am

Next Tuesday, 12th of May 2015, a freefalling Bayern Munich will measure forces with a super motivated Barcelona at the beautiful Allianz Arena for the second-leg of the Semi-finals stage of the UEFA Champions League.

Bayern have lost four matches in a row for the first time in 24 years. Pep Guardiola doesn’t seem to able to recover his team emotionally and Bayern have been slowly drowning themselves into a very mediocre streak of results.

After being trashed by Barcelona at Camp Nou last Wednesday, the Bavarian team succumbed again, this time at home, against an opponent as modest as Augsburg. Nevertheless, it was the midweek defeat against Barça that inflicted a much deeper wound to Bayern. Pep Guardiola’s return to Camp Nou turned out to be an utter nightmare, as he saw his team taking an apparent control of the match during about 65 minutes, only to see it falling into pieces on the last 15 minutes. Bayern conceded three goals on that particular period and once again exposed their enormous defensive frailties.

On next Tuesday’s match, Bayern will have a mountain to climb and their chances of success are, in fact, very limited. It’s true that the Bavarian team managed to recover from a similar disadvantage in the tournament’s last round against FC Porto, however, this time they didn’t score any goal away from home and Barcelona are a very different team from the mighty Portuguese team.

As for Barcelona, the Catalans are now a step closer to win La Liga’s title, after Real Madrid’s home slip up last weekend against Valencia. With just two matches to go until the end of the season, Barça are four points ahead of their eternal rivals and have everything within their grasp to win the competition.

After smashing Guardiola’s Bayern last Wednesday, Barcelona continued to display all their might as they’ve managed to avenge their last January’s defeat against Real Sociedad. David Moyes’ boys held firm during the first-half at Camp Nou but ended up succumbing to Barcelona’s intense attacking match on the first minutes after the break.

Judging from both teams’ recent results and overall performances, it is fair to say that Barcelona are firm favourites to win or at least to snatch a draw for next Tuesday’s match and  the fact that Bayern will be playing at home shouldn’t be relevant.

Bayern Munich

Stats: W-1 L-4 D-0

Recent Form - LLLLW

Barcelona

Stats: W-5 L-0 D-0

Recent Form - WWWWW

Possible Line-ups

Bayern Munich (3-4-3) – Neuer - Rafinha - Benatia - Boateng - Bernat - Xabi Alonso - Lahm - Alcantara - Götze - Müller - Lewandowski

Barcelona (4-3-3) - ter Stegen - Dani Alves - Mascherano - Piqué - Jordi Alba - Busquets - Rakitic - Iniesta - Neymar - Suárez - Messi

Injury List / Suspended Players

Barcelona - Mathieu (inj) (in doubt)

Bayern Munich - Arjen Robben (inj) - Franck Ribery (inj) (in doubt) - David Alaba (inj) - Badstuber (inj)

Head-to-head matches:

Top Players:

Barcelona - Lionel Messi - Luis Suarez - Neymar

Bayern Munich - Robert Lewandowski - Mario Götze - Philipp Lahm

League Positions