(via)
Last week in the UEFA Champions League, a Real Madrid side seemingly (but not suddenly) unable to break down a packed defense fell just short of a spectacular comeback against a fluid, in-form Borussia Dortmund. The final score (aggregate after a home-and-away doubleheader) was 4-3; Real scored two of their three in the final ten minutes of the second leg, and if they had scored again they would have won on the away-goals tiebreaker. It was terribly exciting.
But they didn't score again. And anyway, that's not the result that's still on the minds of fans and pundits alike. While the general focus has been on a passing of the "World's Best" mantle from Spain to Germany, it's definitively not the Madrid-Dortmund result still dominating the editorials. No, everyone is talking about the other UCL semifinal. FC Barcelona were absolutely destroyed by Bayern Munich, 7-0 on aggregate. The first leg in Munich ended 4-0 to Bayern. A Bayern win wasn't a big surprise, but the manner in which it was accomplished was a real shock. Regardless of Barca's recent stumbles, prior to their meeting with Bayern they were still considered by many to be the best club side in the world; even the first leg they were still making almost-credible noises about a comeback. By late Wednesday evening, that opinion seemed (as it does now) well and truly dead. Bayern had humiliated Barcelona a second time (in Barcelona), winning 3-0 and strolling through to the Champions League final. I am going to tell you how and why this happened so you don't have to listen to what anyone else says. Germany isn't simply "better than Spain" now, nor is passing football dead. Barcelona has been headed for a fall for quite a while, Bayern have been eyeing/working toward this triumph for a number of years now, and there's a strangely unmentioned x-factor that I'll get to at the end.
