For Pep, the beauty of Barcelona in days gone by (as gloriously depicted in the photo above) must feel like a distant memory tonight as Real Madrid dismantled Bayern in front of a stunned German crowd.
You have to feel sorry for Guardiola, the man who this week lost his best friend, in the tragic passing of Tito Villanova to cancer. Undoubtedly his focus would have been shaken. Of course this is no explanation for the extraordinary events of tonight and Real thoroughly deserved their victory but this defeat must be the worst and most painful of his managerial career. The margin of defeat and the manner of it had echoes of last year's "end of an era" match when Bayern thrashed Barca 7.0 over two legs. The irony of course is that in two successive seasons, it is Pep's teams that have been humiliated when it mattered most. Of course Guardiola was not in charge for Barca's downfall last season but it was very much his team on the field and once again we have seen a thrashing of a Guardiola inspired team and whether the man can bounce back from such a painful week, remains to be seen. Simply put, in Europe, and in recent weeks, Bayern have been ordinary. They were less than impressive in their victories over Arsenal and Man Utd and tonight we saw them blown away by a team who know exactly how to play against the style of football that Pep loves so much. It was a lesson in how not to defend and there needs to be a major rethink in the Guardiola principles if he is to regain the Champions League crown. In any case, it was a hugely disappointing outcome and the fact they failed to score in both ties is quite a shock and illustrative of how blunt they were in front of goal but their failure to land my BTTS was somewhat diluted by the Madrid victory however, neither results mattered in the outcomes of my bets. Here are the results from tonights bets. BET 1) Stake 70 Euros Wigan to beat Birmingham 5/6 WON 1.0 Returns 128 Euros WINNER 15 euros on Birmingham or draw at this point at 11/4 would mean our worst result would be a 10 euro loss or a 43 euro profit. Im going to let it run...foolish? we will see in 10 minutes or so what I decide to do. I let it run until the 80th minute and put 8 euros on the win or draw at 7/1. This guaranteed my profit and we ended up making 50 euros on this bet. BET 2) Stake 50 Euros Wigan to score 2 or more goals 10/11 LOST - SCORED 1 (1 DISALLOWED :() Bayern v Real BTTS 4/7 LOST Returns 140 Euros LOST BET 3) Stake 30 Euros Birmingham v Wigan BTTS 4/5 LOST 0.1 Charlton v Watford BTTS 4/6 WON 3.1 Real Madrid to qualify 4/6 WON 4.0 Returns 150 EUROS LOST 10 EUROS After 60 minutes, BTTS was a winner at Charlton and Madrid were safe so at this point I was able to cover this bet by putting 30 on Both teams NOT to score at Birmingham to return 20. This ensured either a 10 euro loss only, or a big 90 euro profit. Unfortunately it was the former and in the end we ended the night 10 euros down. Tomorrow;s big game looks tough to call but I should post something shortly. Bona nit Comments are closed.
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