After having to avoid being tackled by the steward to a fan who was jumping in search of his shirt or a hug, Leo Messi faced the Allianz Arena changing room tunnel dejected. After the maximum happiness achieved in Qatar a few months ago with their victory in the World Cup, Bayern Munich stopped Messi’s next great challenge for this 22/23 season: winning the Champions League.
Leo Messi tried to catalyze an attack that was blunt for 180 minutes. The man from Rosario fired three times, but on two he collided with the defense and on another, with Sommer. He gathered the ball (4.3% possession, the attacker who had the most in the entire game), hit a good part of his passes (81% accuracy) and created chances, such as the corner kick that he bounced with his left foot and Ramos almost hit it. Even so, he spent a fateful night before the spider web that Nagelsmann formed for him in the center of the field. Goretzka and even Müller applied themselves with intensity to stop the 30. In the end, neither he nor Mbappé nor Neymar in the first leg were able to remove zero from the scoreboard for the Munich players. Those in red have been Leo Messi’s great nightmare throughout his career. One that he shares with PSG.
Two nights of glory, five of nightmare
Leo Messi has suffered several of the toughest defeats of his career in Europe against Bayern. The attacker first met Bayern in 08/09 on the way to their second Champions League. In his first meeting, Barcelona won 4-0 with two of his goals and an assist from Samuel Eto’o. In the return in Munich, a 1-1 served to close the tie.
Enlarge
The first two nightmare nights occurred four years later. In the semifinals of 12-13, Bayern was a roller and subjected Barcelona to tremendous punishment. In the first leg in Munich, the Bavarians won 4-0 with goals from Müller, Mario Gómez and Arjen Robben. In the return, Bayern swept 0-3. Messi did not play a minute and did not suffer half of the result of a 7-0 aggregate against.
On 14/15, Leo Messi was able to take revenge on Bayern Munich. In the first leg, the Argentine burst the tie from the 77th minute until the endhe. He opened the scoring with a pass from Dani Alves, Rakitic assisted him for the second goal and the Argentine gave Neymar the pass to make it 3-0 and set the Camp Nou on fire in just a few minutes. There he signed one of the best goals of his career with a dribble that dropped Boateng before elevating the ball with a perfect chip over Neuer.
Enlarge
In Munich, Benatia gave a scare header in the 7th minute, but Neymar put the game on track for Barcelona signing a double between the 15th and the 29th. Lewandowski and Müller closed the 3-2, more than insufficient for the comeback. Barça entered the final and beat Juventus, winning their fifth European Cup.
In addition to last night and the narrow defeat in the first leg, Messi also suffered his darkest night in the Champions League against Bayern. In a single-match quarterfinal tie held in Lisbon due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Barcelona experienced its toughest defeat by 2-8. A fall that plunged the culés into a crisis. The toughest defeat of the Argentine, to whom his ogre has forced him to expand his negative history.
Thomas Müller, perhaps aware of this record, took advantage of the new victory for the Munich team to increase the debate that has been facing Cristiano Ronaldo and the Argentine for decades. “Against Messi, things always go well at all levels in terms of results. At the club level, Cristiano Ronaldo was our problem when he was at Real Madrid, ”said the goalscorer.
A shared nightmare with Paris Saint-Germain
After leaving Barcelona behind with the aforementioned win, Bayern prevailed in the 2020 Champions League just against Paris Saint-Germain in the final. It was, in part, that defeat that led the Parisians to go for Leo when he finished his contract in Barcelona. The German red ogre continues to prevent both Messi and PSG from ending their cycle of drought in Europe.
There was another common protagonist for both that made the defeat for the Parisians even more painful. His youth player, Kingsley Coman, returned to participate in the fall of those from the French capital in search of the Champions League.
