Bayern Munich sent out an emphatic and ominous message to their Champions League rivals with an absolute demolition of fellow European heavyweights Barcelona in a gloriously chaotic and utterly one-sided quarter-final tie in Lisbon.
The high-pressing, energetic and ruthless German champions were on a different level to their Spanish rivals, as they have been for pretty much every opponent they have faced in Europe this season and in every competition since football restarted in June.
They scored four times in the first half, added another quartet in the second, and could easily have netted more against a shell-shocked and shambolic Barca side whose defensive errors were too numerous to recount and who now have a new and embarrassing record defeat in European competition to their name.
Bayern were not entirely infallible, though, with Barca’s forward players – inevitably led by Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez – regularly finding space in behind to cause problems and test Manuel Neuer.
In a dizzyingly madcap opening 10 minutes, Thomas Muller fired Bayern ahead following a one-two with Robert Lewandowski and David Alaba wildly sliced a Jordi Alba cross into his own net to restore parity, before Suarez was denied by Neuer and Messi hit the post with a curling cross through a packed box. (BBC)
