Lionel Messi v Robert Lewandowski & Thomas Muller: Analysis of top stars in Barcelona v Bayern Munich Champions League meeting
Bayern Munich and Barcelona stand apart. When the Champions League’s last 16 was completed, they were the two remaining representatives of the established order, surrounded by the nouveaux riches and the improbable outsiders.
Barcelona v Bayern Munich
- Friday August 14 | BT Sport 1 - 8pm
- Match odds: Barca 12/5 | Draw 14/5 | Bayern 19/20
Bayern and Barcelona have five European Cups apiece, the rest of the quarter-finalists none between them.
Clubs linked by Pep Guardiola, Arturo Vidal, Thiago Alcantara and Philippe Coutinho are divided by much else. In particular, by their talismen.
Robert Lewandowski is the best number nine in the world; Lionel Messi, even if he often starts on the right, the outstanding No. 10.
Their clash might have seemed an unofficial shootout for the Ballon d’Or, were the 2020 award not ridiculously cancelled.
Messi recorded the joint most assists (21) in any of Europe’s top five leagues and, by doubling up as La Liga’s top scorer, he was directly involved in 46 goals; 56 in all competitions.
Lewandowski may have missed out on the European Golden Shoe to Ciro Immobile but his tally of 53 goals in all competitions is unrivalled and his record of only failing to score twice in 2020 almost impeccable. He has dominated the Champions League’s scoring stakes to an extraordinary extent.
Lewandowski has 13 goals and only Erling Haaland had even half as many before the quarter-final stage. He topped almost every marker; a ludicrous 1.90 goals per 90 minutes, a goals and assists of 2.48 per 90 minutes, an xG of 8.5 that he has still outperformed, a tally of 21 shots on target that is 50 percent more than anyone else. Perhaps most remarkably, aided by setting up two goals against Chelsea, he also had the joint most assists, with four. The finisher supreme has never been as creative in a Champions League campaign.
If the challenge for Messi is staving off decline, then Lewandowski, who turns 32 next Friday, has improved with age.
His last five seasons have been the five most prolific of his career; no one else has hit 40 goals in each of those five campaigns. If it reflects Bayern’s dominance in Germany, his clinical streak has been a common denominator: over those five years he has 145 Bundesliga goals from 289 shots on target and 43 from 91 in the Champions League; very few others are around the 50 percent mark and Messi is just either side of 40 percent in La Liga and the Champions League respectively over the same period.
That Lewandowski scores with 62 percent of his shots on target in this season’s Champions League looks an outlier; so too, that 58 percent of his shots are on target. It helps that he is much more of a penalty-box poacher – only 20 of his Bundesliga efforts came from outside the 18-yard area, compared to 84 long-range attempts by Messi in La Liga.
And yet, what he is doing is historic. If he scores five more Champions League goals, he will break Cristiano Ronaldo’s record of 17 in a season and draw level with Raul on 71 in his career, behind only two men forever bracketed together.
Even if his campaign ends in a blank on Friday then, barring a miracle, it will be the first season since 2006/07 when either Messi or Ronaldo has not been at least the joint top scorer in the competition. Messi’s current tally of three is his lowest since 2006/07; in every subsequent year, he has got at least six.
If a tough group, including Inter Milan and Borussia Dortmund, is one explanation – Lewandowski got five goals against Red Star Belgrade alone – another may be a shift in his game. Messi got his lowest tally of league goals since 2008/09 in the same season he registered a career high for assists.
Muller the assist master
Thomas Muller has made a similar journey.
The 13th-highest scorer in Champions League history and the 2010 World Cup Golden Boot winner was sufficiently potent that he averages a goal a game against Barcelona, including three in Bayern’s 7-0 aggregate win in 2013. In four seasons between 2012 and 2016, he scored 102 club goals. In four since, he has 45.
But he managed a Messi-equalling 21 league assists. His return of 0.84 assists per 90 minutes was far higher than his closest rival Jadon Sancho’s 0.63, his key passes (82) only four short of Messi’s tally in Spain.
Muller forged his reputation as the ‘Raumdeuter’, an interpreter of space with an uncanny habit of emerging unmarked in the box. Now he uses those skills to find others in room and in promising positions: Muller completed the most passes into the penalty box in the Bundesliga.
Predictably, so did Messi in La Liga. The Argentinian stands second in the Champions League chart and should pass the eliminated Hakim Ziyech. But if neither has been as creative in Europe this season, Lewandowski has compensated. Thus far, he has been the Champions League’s premier player this season.
That mantle has often rested with Messi in the past. He may need to recreate it to halt Lewandowski, and perhaps to save his old rival Ronaldo’s record.
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