The 2012/2013 Champions League, Bundesliga and DFB Pokal treble winners Bayern Munich take on the 1999/2000 Serie A and Copa Italia double winning Lazio side.
Lazio in 1999/2000 were at the peak of the Cragnotti years and celebrating their centenary as a club. The prior season they had won the European Cup Winners cup and been pipped on the final day by Milan to the title. That summer Lazio swapped their top scorer, Christian Vieri to Inter for midfielder Diego Simone and a wheelbarrow of cash which was soon parlayed into additional Argentinians Juan Sebastian Veron, Roberto Sensini and additional striking options in the aging Fabrizio Ravanelli and the younger Inazghi brother, Simone. But the core of the team was already in place: Marchegiani in goal, Nesta, Couto and Mihaijlovic in defense, Almeyda, Nedved, Conceicao and Stankovic in midfield and the swashbuckling brilliance of Marcelo Salas up front. They were a side capable of some thrilling football.
There was an epic 4-4 draw with title rivals Milan early in the season, a brutal Rome derby win and after a great run of form they pulled a 9 point deficit back in the final months of the season so that history repeated and just as 12 months before, Lazio won their last game and had to wait to see if Perugia could do them a favour again a title rival (this time Juventus instead of Milan). This in an era when Juventus match fixing was all but an open secret (Parma had a ghost goal disallowed weeks earlier in highly suspicious circumstances). Unexpectedly Perugia scored the only goal of their game and Lazio were champions of a crazy season, the first club in 9 years not called Milan or Juventus to win the title. They added the Copa to complete a unique double for their centenary celebrations. It was a brief moment on top of the Italian football world: Erickson soon departed for the England job, Veron headed for an ill fated spell at Manchester, Nedved to Juventus, Nesta to Milan and with Cragnotti's finances fading the replacements mainly proving busts, the club has finished between 3rd and 12th place ever since.
That Lazio side's European credentials are interesting and yet another to mark in the "what might have been" draw. They beat the 1999 Man United Champions League winners in the pre-season UEFA SuperCup, won their initial Champions League group without defeat, topped the second group stage on the back of a 5-1 win against Marseilles and an away win at Chelsea and were heavy favourites in their quarter final against Valencia. The first leg was at La Mestalla, Lazio were without their goalkeeper Marchegiani and captain Alessandro Nesta and their absence proved crucial. After a nightmare start, they found themselves 2-0 after only four minutes. A hat-trick on the night from Gerard and one each for Angulo and future Lazio signing Claudio Lopez were partly offset by away goals from Inzaghi and Salas. 5-2 down, shell shocked, they managed to win the return leg in Rome but not by enough to overcome that disastrous first half. Lazio fans must wonder if things might have been quite different had Marchegiani and Nesta been available. Valencia went on to pull off another La Mestalla blitzkrieg in the first leg against Barcelona and make the final. The two teams that bookended this Lazio side's European campaign, 1999 United and 2000 Valencia both lurk in this competition. Might their paths cross again? Of course to set up a revenge meeting with either they will need to get past one of the greatest Bayern sides ever put together.
Bayern Munich in 2013 won literally every competition they entered. They lost 3 games (drew 5) in all competition all season. They broke or equalled 30 German football records during the season. Their all competition goal difference was +118, translating to an average winning margin of more than 2 goals. Yet what this side is remembered for above any of these things is that this was the team that slew the Barcelona dragon that had terrorised Europe for the previous 5 years. Between 2008 and 2013 Barcelona had lost matches, even Champions League semi-finals, but it was consensus that they were not only the best team in the world but possibly in history. As late as April 2013 Messi and his men were the gold standard, whom other contenders hoped to sneak past with a bit of luck- as Chelsea had 12 months prior before beating Bayern on penalties in the final. By the time the 2013 semi-final was over, the Barcelona aura was in tatters and Bayern, 7-0 aggregate winners and hardly flattered by that score, marched imperiously on towards victory at Wembley in the final against domestic rivals Borussia Dortmund and a place in history.
The following two years would see more Bundesliga titles tempered by Champions league semi-final defeats but the German core of this side, led by captain Philip Lahm, would lift the World Cup in Brazil in 2014.
It's worth reflecting that even sides as dominant as this Bayern team can stumble. In the last 16 round of the champions league the Germans beat Arsenal 3-1 in London only to perhaps take their foot off the pedal in the return leg and record one of those 3 defeats, 2-0 at home and thus only made the quarter finals on away goals. A crazy few minutes and their season is not so dissimilar to that of Lazio's.
No comments:
Post a Comment