Bundesliga leaders and five-time European champions Bayern Munich and their all-star cast featuring Robert Lewandowski, Philippe Coutinho, Thomas Müller, Serge Gnabry and more take on Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League last 16.
Here are five reasons Bayern will beat Chelsea.
Robert LewanGOALski
Is there a better centre-forward in the world right now than Lewandowski? No, we thought not. He’s the Bundesliga’s top scorer with a personal-best 25 goals from 23 matchdays and the Champions League’s top scorer with 10 from five games – just one short of Cristiano Ronaldo’s group-stage record but in one game fewer.
All told, the Poland captain has 38 goals in his 32 competitive club appearances this season, finding the back of the net on average every 75 minutes. That's compared to 106 for Ronaldo, 103 for Lionel Messi and 91 for Kylian Mbappe. Chelsea top scorer Tammy Abraham nets every 164 minutes.
So far this season, only seven teams have been able to stop Lewandowski from scoring, while he also enjoys facing teams from London, with five goals in his last four games for Bayern against clubs from the British capital. Up against the third-leakiest defence in the top half of the Premier League, Lewy will be licking his lips.
The better supporting cast
While most defenders’ eyes naturally fall on Lewandowski, who is also just one goal behind Karim Benzema in fourth place in the Champions League's all-time scoring chart, the players around him go about their work with astonishing German efficiency.
Gnabry is Bayern's second top scorer with 15 – the same as Chelsea's leading scorer Abraham. The young England international is also the only player in Frank Lampard’s squad to make it to double figures.
In terms of assists, Thomas Müller’s 14 after 22 matchdays in the Bundesliga isn’t just a league record since detailed data collection began, but more than double that of any Chelsea player in all competitions in 2019/20.
While Abraham and former Borussia Dortmund winger Christian Pulisic top the Chelsea standings with six assists apiece, they are among just six players to have three or more for last year’s UEFA Europa League winners. By contrast, there are 11 Bayern players, including Lewandowski, who have registered at least three across all competitions.
Coming off a record group stage
While Chelsea crept through Group H by the slimmest of margins, just a point ahead of Ajax after the Dutch champions’ 1-0 loss at home to Valencia in the final match, Bayern didn’t just win their group, they absolutely dominated it.
Tottenham Hotspur (7-2 and 3-1), Red Star Belgrade (3-0 and 6-0) and Olympiacos (3-2 and 2-0) were all dispatched with aplomb as the 29-time German champions recorded the best group stage in Champions League history with six wins from six and a goal difference of +19.
Lewandowski's 10 goals, Gnabry became the first player in the competition's history to score four in a second half as Bayern ran riot in North London and thrashed Mauricio Pochettino's Champions League finalists from the previous season.
Lewandowski then became the second player to achieve the feat in the 6-0 victory in Belgrade as Bayern scored five goals or more in a Champions League game for a competition record 20th time.
Neuer sweeping up
Haters out there will have written off Neuer after his foot injuries over the last few years, but the Bayern and Germany captain is proving them all wrong. His eight clean sheets in the Bundesliga this season is a league best, while he has saved 83 per cent of shots in his first five games after the winter break, which was the most of all goalkeepers to feature in all five.
The 33-year-old also stacks up very well to his Chelsea counterparts. Kepa Arrizabalaga has just five league clean sheets, conceding eight more goals in three games less.
The Spaniard has also made fewer saves (41) than Neuer (60) in the league and, just as crucially for a modern goalkeeper, averages fewer passes per game (28.3) than his Bayern counterpart (31.2).
In his long and distinguished career, World Cup-winner and seven-time Bundesliga champion Neuer has made just 10 mistakes leading to a goal in his 239 league games for Bayern. For a goalkeeper who seems to spend most of his time playing as defender, reinventing how the game is played in the process, that is not bad.
European and knockout pedigree
Although it's been nearly eight years since the 2012 Champions League final, there is certainly a sense of revenge in this clash for Bayern and their fans. If it weren’t for Chelsea and Didier Drogba, the Bavarians would have six European titles to their name instead of 'just' five.
To make the pain even greater, Chelsea’s shootout win – their only Champions League title – came at the Allianz Arena in the so-called 'Finale dahoam' as Bayern missed out on becoming the first team to win the trophy at home.
Jupp Heynckes' side would go on to claim a fifth European crown the following season at Wembley against Dortmund as they became the first German team to win the treble, but the wound is still raw, especially with the news that the Allianz Arena will host the final again in 2022.
That was only Chelsea's second final appearance, but Bayern have made it to 10 of the showpiece events. And Hansi Flick's side will be eager to demonstrate their continental pedigree again in the last 16, particularly after last season’s defeat to Jürgen Klopp’s eventual winners Liverpool, which ended the club’s run of seven straight appearances in at least the quarter-finals.