Starnes: Dawn of a new German sunrise,
Champions League final is all but set now
Germany’s top teams — Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund — crushed the pride of Spain — Barcelona and Real Madrid — in Champions League semifinal first leg matches this week that have set the soccer world on its ear.
The cumulative score: Germany 10, Spain 1. Astonishing.
Amazing sporting occasions like this always throw out a couple of remarkable storylines, but the ones kicked up this week defy belief and leave us wondering where to shine the brightest light.
Is it on Polish wonderman Robert Lewandowski or baby-faced 20-year-old Mario Goetze, whose last game for Dortmund will almost certainly be against Bayern, the team he has signed for once the final whistle goes on this championship?
Is it sunset time for Spanish club and country soccer domination and the dawning of a new German sunrise?
Should we talk about the Jurgen Klinsmann effect or the Jurgen Klopp motivation machine?
And how far behind have oncedominant English and Italian clubs fallen?
The English FA, 150 this year, must have been praying for an English club in the final at London’s Wembley Stadium. Now it will almost certainly be between two German teams. I wonder how that makes the Brits feel?
The storylines are endless, but it is impossible not to concentrate first on one of the most electrifying displays of striker power in Champions League history. Actually there are those who would describe it, without exaggeration, as the most exciting in all of soccer history.
Lewandowski was a player with potential and an eye for goal as a 22-year-old in the Polish first division with Lech Poznan. Not a great player, but an attractive prospect to average teams around Europe. In 2010, he caught the eye of Sam Allardyce, who is always hunting bargains as veteran coach with Blackburn in the English Premiership.
As I watched, I could not get out of my mind a game between Real Madrid and another German club — Eintracht Frankfurt — 53 years ago. There were 10 goals in that one — the European Cup final at Glasgow’s Ibrox Stadium.
Lewandowski was scheduled to fly into England to watch a Blackburn game, expected to sign for something in the $5.3 million range. But an erupting Icelandic volcano was raining ash on much of Europe and Lewandowski couldn’t get off the ground. End of that story.
Tottenham was also said to be interested, but the Pole finally opted for Dortmund.
What a bargain he turned out to be. He has been scoring almost at will since he reached the German Bundesliga. But nothing prepared any of us for his performance against Real on Wednesday.
His first goal, a typically brave lunge at full speed and full stretch to convert a bullet cross from Goetze, stalled Jose Mourinho’s men almost before they had started their engines. His third goal was an unforgettable slight-of-foot effort more reminiscent of Lionel Messi skills than a thundering striker. His penalty was a thumping shot. Oh yes, he scored another somewhere in the 4-1 win but I can hardly remember that one.
As I watched, I could not get out of my mind a game between Real Madrid and another German club — Eintracht Frankfurt — 53 years ago. There were 10 goals in that one — the European Cup final at Glasgow’s Ibrox Stadium.
Two of the greatest players of their era dominated seven-goal Madrid. Alfredo Di Stefano scored a hat-trick but was outshone by Ferenc Puskas, with four goals of his own, including a penalty à la Lewandowski.
That was a game I will never forget, nor will I forget Wednesday’s. Lewandowski’s brilliance thankfully confined to the shadows a prematch controversy that threatened to sour a great occasion.
Goetze is the shining star of German soccer right now, and has spent almost all his playing life at Dortmund. When he signed a longterm contract to stay with the club for several more years, it came with a $63.5 million release clause.
On the eve of the Dortmund-Real game, news leaked that Bayern had triggered the release by paying up that much to sign the man.
He will not join until July 1, but imagine the hysterical response to the leaking on the eve of one of the most important games in Dortmund history.
How’s that for disrupting preparations and how’s that for turning fans against one of the most important men in their team, midfield conductor Goetze?
Coach Jurgen Klopp is a man with a wicked sense of humour, a refusal to dress like an executive because he considers it inappropriate and an ability to coax the very best out of young players. He needed all his skills to keep his team focused.
He even had time to concentrate on countless entreaties to fans not to go after Goetze, who had nothing to do with any leak and who was destined to leave once the season was over in any case.
The 65,829 fans packed the stadium to the rafters, and if there was any anti-Goetze sentiment, it was drowned out by the roaring horde — especially once the club’s deadly duo (Goetze the provider and Lewandowski the scorer) put the first one past Madrid.
Oh yes, almost forgot there were three other teams involved in these semifinal first legs. Real Madrid and coach Jose Mourinho must have been almost pleased Lewandowski grabbed the headlines. It took the spotlight off a lukewarm show that almost certainly cannot be reversed next week in Spain.
And the world would have been shouting for days about Barcelona’s 4-1 demolition at the hands of Bayern had Dortmund’s show not overshadowed everything. Barca was awful mostly because Messi played unfit, and when Messi is off his game, so goes Barca it seems.
If the club is to have any chance of reversing things this week against a Bayern squad with no visible weakness and a towering advantage at set pieces in the penalty area, it had better pray Messi has recovered enough to make a difference. The return games go Tuesday in Madrid, Wednesday in Barcelona. But Spanish club supporters shouldn’t get their hopes up. Nobody in their right minds would bet against an all-German final.