\n<\/p>\n
In October, <\/span>after Bayern Munich had been battered 7-1 by Barcelona in the Champions League league phase<\/span>if it was known that the two would meet again in the semi-finals, few would’ve given Bayern a chance. That the German champions managed to make the tie so competitive, then, was a real credit to the players, the staff and head coach Jose Barcala.<\/span><\/p>\n Bayern have underwhelmed in Europe in recent years. This was only the club’s second European semi-final appearance, after they threw away a first leg lead to lose to Chelsea back in 2021, with three quarter-final eliminations and a shock group-stage exit in the time since. Despite wrestling domestic control from Wolfsburg, it has just not translated on the European stage for Bayern, <\/span>with Wolfsburg even managing to reach a Champions League final in 2023<\/span> despite that season sparking a run of four successive Bundesliga titles for the club from Bavaria.<\/span><\/p>\n It’s hard not to feel like Bayern have taken serious steps forward this season, then. In this semi-final, they went toe-to-toe with the three-time champions in two very different matches. In the first leg, they kept it tight and stayed well in the tie thanks to a 1-1 draw that was characterised by defensive discipline and impressive resilience following a red card for Franziska Kett. In the second leg, they pushed the boat out a little more and could’ve scored many more, if not for the woodwork, some huge saves from Cata Coll and a controversial intervention by VAR.<\/span><\/p>\n To an extent, we’ve been here before. In the 2022-23 season, Bayern beat Barca 3-1 in an eye-opening group-stage encounter, but it would ultimately count for nothing in another quarter-final exit. Is this year different? It feels like it could be.<\/span><\/p>\n There will be pressure on Bayern to back this up next season, but Barcala showed good things in this tie to suggest he could be the coach to help this huge club finally assert themselves on the continent in the women’s game.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In October, after Bayern Munich had been battered 7-1 by Barcelona in the Champions League…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}