Robert Lewandowski, formidable form and history are good reasons why Bayern will get the better of their Austrian neighbours in the UEFA Champions League.
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The short trip to their Austrian neighbours should ease Bayern into what they hope will be a successful assault on European football’s top continental crown, and bundesliga.com has five reasons why the record champions should be able to cross this first of four remaining hurdles with plenty to spare…
1) Bayern flying at home and in Europe
Bayern flew into the knockout rounds with six wins out of six, seeing them finish Group E not just as winners, but a massive ten points clear of their nearest rivals Benfica. It is the second time in three seasons that the Bavarians have come through the group stage with a flawless record, with the last time being in 2019/20 – when they went on to lift the title with a 1-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain in the final. Not only has Bayern’s European form been so good this term, they are also flying again in the Bundesliga.
Watch: Bayern beat Leipzig to pull nine points clear
After a stumble at the start of the new year, when Borussia Mönchengladbach took a 2-1 win away from the Allianz Arena with them, Bayern have extended their advantage at the top of the Bundesliga to nine points with three straight wins up to their surprise 4-2 defeat at Bochum on Saturday, scoring 11 goals in the process.
“Only nine points?” Salzburg may say. The Austrians are a whopping 14 points clear at the top of the Austrian Bundesliga, having lost just once all season. Furthermore, they made a winning start to 2022 with a 3-1 win over LASK to secure their place in the semi-finals of the Austrian Cup. Yet it has not proven to be so easy in Europe this term, with Matthias Jaissle’s men only booking their place in the last 16 on Matchday 6, with a narrow 1-0 win over Sevilla – only their third win of the group stage.
Since that game, Salzburg only played one more Bundesliga fixture before the winter break, and several friendly games have since been called off with Jaissle’s men arguably out of practice heading into the league’s restart on Friday, where they came from a goal behind to win 2-1 at Rapid Vienna.
2) Robert Lewandowski, period.
When you have the best player in the world in your ranks, you are at an advantage over everybody, period. Not only do Bayern boast the best footballer on the planet in Lewandowski, but he is also in scintillating form and adding to his seemingly endless list of records on a weekly basis, most recently ending a calendar year with 43 Bundesliga goals, surpassing the previous best set by Gerd Müller, whose single-season record of 40 goals was, incidentally, beaten by Lewandowski last term.
Watch: Lewandowski’s first 24 Bundesliga goals of 2021/22
Lewandowski has only failed to score in seven of his 30 competitive appearances this season and, since being named the best player on the planet, became only the second player in Bundesliga history to reach 300 goals. The point being that Lewandowski, who has scored nine goals already in the Champions League this term, and notched his 25th and 26th league goals of the season against Bochum at the weekend, is a man who can – and most likely will – make the difference.
3) Enviable support crew
Football is a team game and no individual – not even Lewandowski – can win games alone, but this is where the plot thickens and the argument strengthens for a Bayern victory at the Red Bull Arena in Salzburg. Behind every great striker there is a supply chain, and Bayern’s is arguably the best around. Thomas Müller is once again running away at the top of the assist rankings, having set up 16 Bundesliga goals this season – six more than his nearest rival Florian Wirtz of Bayer Leverkusen, or anyone else in one of Europe’s top five leagues for that matter.
The Germany international set a new league record for assists in 2019/20, supplying 21 goals, and he is only two shy of the 18 he supplied last season, but he is not the only one providing goals on a plate for Lewandowski. Leroy Sane is already on seven assists while Joshua Kimmich has five. Looking even deeper than the pure statistics, Bayern also boast the trickery and tenacity of Serge Gnabry and Kingsley Coman, two players who may not get so much credit for providing the final ball before a goal, but drive defenders dizzy in creating space as the source to many goals.
It is a real team effort for Bayern with Serge Gnabry (l.), Thomas Müller (2.l.), Leroy Sane (r.) and Joshua Kimmich (r.) all teeing up the goals for Robert Lewandowski (3.r.). – IMAGO / Horstmüller
What Müller, Gnabry, Sane and Coman provide is an unpredictability to the Bayern attack which makes them practically undefendable. And when you have the planet’s prime predator up top waiting for just a glimmer of a sight of goal, this can only mean one thing.
Together, Lewandowski, Müller, Gnabry, Sane have scored 49 league goals this season – five more than the entire Salzburg team have managed. The case is closed.
4) Bundesliga > Bundesliga
Both the German and Austrian leagues carry the same name, but that is about as far as the similarities go. Down the years, Salzburg have faced German Bundesliga clubs 18 times and they have won just six of them, losing eight. One of those wins came last October, when they defeated Wolfsburg, but they also lost to the Wolves in the reverse fixture in November.
You don’t have to go back far to see the last time Salzburg faced Bayern either, with the two teams meeting in the group stage last season. Bayern held the upper hand in both of those fixtures, winning 3-1 in Munich after a 6-2 win in Salzburg, with Lewandowski on target three times over the two fixtures.
The last time Salzburg faced German opponents in a knockout stage, they were eliminated by Eintracht Frankfurt 6-3 on aggregate, in the 2019/20 UEFA Europa League. The Eagles only managed a 2-2 draw in Austria, but had already done enough damage with a 4-1 win at home. Bayern, on the other hand, were last knocked out of Europe by an Austrian club in… well actually, they never have been eliminated by a club from their neighbouring country and have only ever lost once to Austrian opponents – a 1-0 defeat to Rapid Vienna in the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup way back in 1967. Historically, clubs from Germany’s Bundesliga have proven to be stronger than those from its Austrian counterpart.
5) Short journey
Often a leveller in European ties can be the distance an away team has to travel, and the different climate they could face when they get there. Scrap that here, because Bayern can travel to Salzburg by bus in just over the time it takes for a game of football to be played. In fact, their trip for this Champions League away game is the shortest they could possibly have for a European game, and much more manageable than their trip to Bochum in the Bundesliga at the weekend.
The short trip to Salzburg is arguably the most comfortable Bayern Munich will ever have to make in the UEFA Champions League. – Boris Streubel/Getty Images
Playing away from home has hardly been an issue for Bayern anyway, though. They haven’t lost a Champions League game outside of Munich since September 2017, since winning 20 and drawing four. Victories in the group stage this season at Barcelona (3-0), Benfica (4-0) and Kyiv (2-1) have made it five wins in a row on the road in Europe, as well as clean sheets in three of the last four.
Bayern’s players appear to relish their trips away from the Bavarian capital too. Lewandowski, for example, has a Bundesliga record of 125 goals away from home, and he has struck at least once in all but one of his past eight away games, for a total of 14 goals – including two more at the weekend.
Furthermore, this season Bayern have scored more goals (37) on their travels than they have at the Allianz Arena (33), so make no mistake about it, they will be fired up for this short bus trip to Salzburg, with room to bring the victory back home in the luggage compartment.