Despite their recent Bundesliga slip-up at Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich is still one of the odds-on favorites to make it to the Champions League final in Istanbul, Turkey later this year. After a group stage campaign of 6 wins, 0 draws and 0 losses with a group that also contained Inter Milan and Barcelona, Bayern dispatched Paris Saint-Germain in the round of 16 by virtue of a 1-0 and 2-0 wins over the Ligue 1 giants.
Now they’ve drawn Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in the quarter finals, and have the benefit of having the second leg of the tie at the Allianz Arena. This is certainly a matchup worthy of this year’s final in Istanbul, but Real Madrid have also progressed to the quarter finals of the competition and are the current holders of the cup having beaten Liverpool last year in Paris.
Of all of the potential opponents left on paper heading into the quarter finals draw, Real Madrid and Man City were probably the two sides that Bayern wanted to avoid, but based on objective evidence in the competition so far this season, there’s no one they can’t beat. Looking ahead to the quarter finals, which are set to take place from April 11th-19th, Bayern president Herbert Hainer is really fancying the Rekordmeister’s chances of going the distance.
“Now we have Manchester City ahead. Small details will decide who goes through. It would have been a nice final. Paris is also a top team in Europe, and we beat them,” he told kicker’s Georg Holzner (via @iMiaSanMia). “Kylian Mbappé said that we have a team built to win the Champions League. José Mourinho said he would love to have the options we have. With all due respect to other clubs, we shouldn’t hide from anyone,” he continued, exuding the faith he has in Bayern and recognizing the external admiration for they way things have gone this season.
For Bayern, they’ll just have to not allow any room for complacency as they have in their Bundesliga losses to Leverkusen, FC Augsburg, and Borussia Monchengladbach, which have been night and day different from their Champions League performances have been like this season. Borussia Dortmund remained top of the table after Bayern’s weekend loss at Leverkusen, so the title race will come down to the wire, adding more pressure on Bayern, as well as the quarter-final Pokal clash in the beginning of April against SC Freiburg.