Barça v Bayern
Which one is the ‘ultimate’ team?
There are very few football fans around the globe that can argue against Spanish giants Barcelona and Bundesliga heavyweights Bayern Munich being the top two in-form teams in Europe. The duo have brushed aside most opponents in their path, mesmerising fans with an entertaining and attacking brand of football and scoring with ease as they dominate their local leagues, while performing on the continental stage as well. A combination of impressive individual talent, team cohesion, tactical acumen and forwardthinking tacticians make both clubs a feared force in Europe. Here we break down their impressive form in recent times.
League supremacy
Winners of their domestic leagues in the 2014/15 campaign, both European heavyweights have continued in the same vein this season: as at the end of 2015, the midway point of the Bundesliga season, Bayern had already opened up an eight-point lead at the summit of the standings, losing just once while recording an impressive 15 wins in their opening 17 matches. Last year they took the German season by storm, sealing a third Bundesliga title on the trot for the fourth time in their history, and in some style: the Bavarians clinched the title on matchday 30, the third-fastest in the League’s history, to earn a record 25th League triumph. In La Liga, Barcelona ended 2015 with an emphatic 4-0 hammering of Real Betis on the penultimate day of the year, which left them joint-top of the standings with a game in hand, having lost just two of their 16 matches at that stage. This after winning last season’s La Liga campaign to make it five League titles in the past seven years. Both clubs beat their archrivals on the domestic front in convincing fashion in the first half of the current campaign, and both by four-goal margins: Barcelona stunned Real Madrid 4-0 in the first instalment of this season’s El Clasico, while Bayern thumped nemesis Borussia Dortmund 5-1 in September.
Champions League
A glance at Europe’s premier club competition, the Uefa Champions League, saw two of the competition’s most successful sides navigate this season’s group stage with ease. Bayern qualified top of