Can struggling Chelsea repeat Champions League history against Bayern Munich?
By Akuma Victor
Chelsea will host a daring Bayern Munich side at Stamford Bridge on February 25, 2020 with the return leg coming up on Wednesday, March 18th, 2020. Ahead of the epic clash, tongues have been wagging among fans and pundits alike.
Some have already concluded that Lampard’s boys will suffer a defeat against the German side owing to the team’s inconsistency of results and performances in recent Premier league matches. Their argument is that Chelsea’s players don’t stand a chance with the German side as they have always had the better performances in their local leagues and beyond.
Base on form, it is pretty difficult anticipating victory for the Blues against a tactically-drilled Bayern side with a lots of experienced players.
But going back to the history of the two teams in Champions League, posterity seems to be in the favour of Chelsea as they have been able to win two out of three head to heads in Europe’s elite competition.
The first Champions League match between Chelsea and Bayern was in the 2004/2005 season, where Chelsea trashed the German side four goals to two at home, on April 6, 2005. A week later, on Tuesday 12th April to be precise, Chelsea suffered a 3 vs 2 defeat at Bayern’s backyard.
After the 2004/2005 Champions League games, it took another six years for the teams to meet each other again in the competition and this was the 2011/2012 Champions league finals which held at Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany.
The match, which ended a draw, was concluded with penalty shootouts where the likes of Didier Drogba gave Chelsea its first Champions League trophy, despite struggling for form in the league.
Whether or not Lampard –who was part of the 2011/2012 history — can lead his side to another victory against the German side after eight years is only a matter of time.
