I’m kidding, at least sort of…

Well, it has all come crashing down on Bayern München as they flopped to a disgraceful defeat at home to Real Madrid. Losing itself isn’t a disgrace, it’s the manner in which they did it. They got their asses ripped and played without soul, and were deserved losers. The tiki-taka import is been revealed to be an emperor without clothes. Perhaps Pep Guardiola was a Spanish plant to get La Liga back to the top, mission accomplished

I jest of course, as Real was clearly better, and Atletico is the surprise of the year. So it’s not shocking that Spain grabs both spots in the final, which matches last year’s German faceoff.

I think that the differences between Heynckes squad of last year and Guardiola’s version are pretty obvious. Heynckes opted for a traditional German pressing and aggressive style, with fast breaks and assaults. Pretty much the strengths of German football. Guardiola pretty much imposed a “pass the ball around aimlessly until the opponent falls asleep” style. It was fairly successful if you look just at the Bundesliga, and the Euro campaign wasn’t horrible. But other sides are figuring out the tiki-taka and it’s just plain boring, and it seems to put Bayern asleep just as much as the opponent. And once the Bayern players lost some of their focus, things started going south. You could see it in some of their recent Bundesliga matches, especially getting ripped by Dortmund at home. Certainly part of it was that the title was already wrapped up, but the lack of focus seemed to permeate a lot of their recent play.

It will be interesting to see if there is any fall-out. Obviously Bayern will be under pressure to win the German Cup against Dortmund. Then a double and a semi-final in Champions League, doesn’t seem too bad. But the Bayern bosses undoubtedly had at least the CL final penciled in, and certainly not getting embarrassed at home. It would be hard to say that Guardiola is i trouble, although Bayern have been known to be ruthless when they don’t reach expectations. But since his signing was such a big deal, I doubt that there would be any movement for replacement. However a loss to Dortmund would certainly have some folks getting second thoughts and increase grumbling.

It does probably mean that Bayern need to probably win the CL next season (along with the Bundesliga title, obviously). That’s an interesting position for the coach…