Bayern Munich shout out their potency but Pep Guardiola knows true tests lie ahead

If they repeat the kind of form that saw them put six past Porto in the quarter-finals, no team in Europe could hope to leave the Allianz Arena in one piece

(Getty Images)

When one of the most extraordinary matches Munich can have seen was done, Thomas Müller ran over to Bayern’s most passionate fans in the Südkurve and began shouting into a megaphone. “This is a statement we will take into the next round,” he said when things had become a little calmer.

The forward’s words would have been heard in Barcelona and Madrid. If they repeat the kind of form that saw them put six past Porto in the quarter-finals and seven past Shakhtar Donetsk in the previous round, no team in Europe could hope to leave the Allianz Arena in one piece.

For Porto’s coach, Julen Lopetegui, who had come to Munich with a two-goal lead to protect, the 26 minutes in which Bayern scored five times was the mark of “the best team in the world, the clearest candidates to win the competition”.

Even at the end of a crushing defeat, Lopetegui might be expected to lavish praise on the Bayern Munich of Pep Guardiola. The two were team-mates at the Nou Camp and remain friends.

Porto are a fine side by Champions League standards but to be considered the best team in the world, Bayern would have to do this to someone bigger. It would not compare, for instance, with the night Guardiola orchestrated a performance that saw Barcelona put six past Real Madrid in the Bernabeu.

And yet he knew that had he lost a contest he described as “about life and death” – as Bayern had previously always lost when attempting to overturn a two-goal deficit – there would be serious questions.

Chief of these would have been his record in the Champions League. The 3-1 defeat in the first leg was his third in a knockout game with Bayern. That was as many as he had lost in four years at Barcelona.

Bayern players celebrate the 6-1 thrashing of Porto (GETTY IMAGES)

He had only beaten three teams. An Arsenal side that year after year have floundered in Europe, the Manchester United of David Moyes and a Shakhtar outfit that had spent the season in exile 600 miles away from its home ground.

Much as Bayern’s managing director Karl-Heinz Rummenigge insists the Bundesliga is the yardstick by which Guardiola should be judged, to the outside world it will be how he competes against the great powers of Europe. Thus far it had not been overly impressive.

“I know how important this night was,” said Guardiola, who was last night charged by Uefa for wearing a T-shirt to a news conference that supported a campaign to investigate the death of an Argentine journalist at last year’s World Cup. “This was about winning, just like Barcelona. But we can play better; we lost the ball here and there and in the second half we were not especially effective.”

There are some who might have wanted Porto annihilated but, like Germany in their World Cup semi-final against Brazil last year, they eased off. Guardiola thought they should have pressed on, not because he wanted to grind Lopetegui’s face into the dirt but because he cannot stand a team that relaxes. Before last year’s semi-final with Real Madrid, Bayern, having won the Bundesliga weeks before, had been stretched out on metaphorical sunbeds and paid a dreadful penalty.

Pep Guardiola speaking after the game (GETTY IMAGES)

On Saturday, Bayern could win the league again if they beat Hertha Berlin. There will be celebrations but then they will have to rouse themselves for what follows.

Before kick-off on Tuesday, the Südkurve held up a slogan that proclaimed: “Never Surrender”. It was Porto who capitulated at the first sign of crisis but Guardiola knows that the team that takes their place will fight far harder.