They did not get to win the trophy at home, but they may yet lift it at Wembley. The dream of a dahoam finale collapsed for Bayern Munich last year, but a new one, more compelling, has risen.
This was the performance that confirmed what many see as a power shift in European football. Barcelona, small but perfectly, beautifully formed, were blown away by the better team in a cacophonous Allianz Arena.
Munich are the daddies now.
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Going ahead: Thomas Mueller celebrates giving his side the lead
What went wrong? Barcelona's star player Lionel Messi is left to stew after the comprehensive 4-0 loss
Match facts:
Bayern Munich: Neuer, Lahm, Boateng, Dante, Alaba, Javi Martinez, Schweinsteiger, Robben, Muller (Pizarro 83), Ribery (Shaqiri 88), Gomez (Gustavo 71).
Subs not used: Starke, Van Buyten, Rafinha, Tymoschuk.
Booked: Gomez, Javi Martinez, Schweinsteiger.
Goals: Muller 25, Gomez 49, Robben 73, Muller 82.
Barcelona: Valdes, Dani Alves, Pique, Bartra, Jordi Alba, Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta, Sanchez, Messi, Pedro (Villa 83).
Subs not used: Pinto, Fabregas, Thiago, Montoya, Abidal, Song.
Booked: Bartra, Sanchez, Jordi Alba, Iniesta.
Attendance: 68,000
Referee: Viktor Kassai (Hungary)
Quicker, sharper, more incisive, relentless in their pursuit of victory, they were the better team in every way last night, stronger defensively but with greater attacking verve, too.
Barcelona had 63 per cent of first-half possession, which amounted to one chance. Bayern’s 37 per cent looked like a slaughter. They made it count, they pierced, they hurt, they won by four for heaven’s sake. This was a victory beyond the wildest imagination.
It will take a performance so much greater than the 4-0 takedown of AC Milan for Barcelona to progress next week. The same scoreline will only net a draw and Bayern are a different class to the Italians.
They had good fortune with the second goal, which looked offside, but the scoreline, incredibly, did not flatter them. This Munich team has rewritten the record books domestically and may one day do so on a grander stage.
They have nothing to fear in Europe this season, and with a young team and money to burn, that may be true for a while.
They must get to Wembley first, obviously, but with Pep Guardiola soon to succeed Jupp Heynckes and major signings to be made, there is a very ominous feel about Bayern’s supremacy now. English football may be striving to keep up with the wrong mob. Bayern could have won this by more.
One foot in the final: Bayern Munich's Mario Gomez and team mate Javi Martinez celebrate after going 2-0 up
As it was, they stopped at four and the second was a gift. Mario Gomez looked suspiciously offside when he converted Thomas Muller’s header from no more than two yards but, if he was, the addition of more officials proved no help to the process.
The extra official merely looked over to the linesman and, seeing no flag raised, kept his counsel. It does not help that UEFA insists on the refereeing team being from the same country. Does Hungary possess six world class officials?
Not on this evidence.
The build-up to Bayern’s third included a significant body check by Muller that was again ignored by the officials, but such was the dominance of the home team that feelings of injustice were increasingly irrelevant.
Three and easy: Arjen Robben celebrates scoring the third goal against Barca
Remember the name: Robben celebrates in front of the fans after his goal
Having gone past Jordi Alba once, Robben then took advantage of Muller’s intervention to kick on and curl a lovely finish into the far corner. The fourth, Muller’s second, took fervour inside the stadium to a new high. They knew Bayern were good, but this good?
It was a peach of a goal, too.
Bastian Schweinsteiger found Franck Ribery on the left, Ribery sent David Alaba on the overlap, Alaba crossing and Muller arriving with special timing to score from close range.
Barcelona were done and have little way back. They gambled on Lionel Messi but he was plainly unfit and looks unlikely to be much improved by next week. A smart man, Guardiola. It was almost as if he saw it coming.
Feeling down: Barcelona forward Lionel Messi looks dejected
No way back? Messi and Barcelona face an uphill task in the second leg
This felt, strangely, like more than a football match. It felt like the arrival of a new European order, one created by the wealth of UEFA and the regulations that will make the mighty mightier.
Bayern do not feel so much like a club as a giant financial powerhouse, one that has used its position of power within the European Clubs Association to shape the playing field to its advantage.
It has won the Bundesliga by a record margin already this season — the competition was concluded six weeks before the end of the season. As if to emphasise their position of strength, this week brought the announcement of the first signing of the Guardiola era, the best player at rivals Borussia Dortmund, Mario Gotze, for £31.5m. The word is that Manchester United and Arsenal can forget about Dortmund’s Robert Lewandowski, too.
He will be joining Gotze at Munich in the close season of 2014, when his contract expires.
Wheeling away: Muller celebrates scoring his second and Bayern's fourth to set Barca Mission Impossible
All on one: Franck Ribery attempts to dribble the ball past Barca players including Busquets, Xavi and Alves
The noise, the sense of entitlement and supremacy, the wall of red, it all contributes to the sense that here are football’s new masters of the universe, except this time decrees have been passed to ensure it stays that way. For Chelsea to have beaten this team, albeit on penalties, in this stadium for the greatest prize in club football a year ago remains one of the sporting feats of this century. On nights like this, it is hard to imagine how Bayern ever lose a game.
Particularly as they are not immune to pulling the odd stroke too. Whether by accident or design, the pitch had been ferociously watered immediately prior to the game.
It was a dry day in Munich, beautiful, sunny, the best of the year by all accounts, yet the surface played as if affected by a recent cloud burst — most noticeably in the areas where Barcelona’s tiki-taka gets going, around the centre circle. Not that Munich are long ball merchants, but nothing slows a quick, short passing game more than the ball aqua-planing when it should be skipping to its intended recipient.
Naughty, that.
Disaster: Barcelona's star midfielder Andres Iniesta looks on helpless as his side capitulate
Deserved: Munich's head coach Jupp Heynckes (left) celebrates with his coaching staff
Teams of this quality are good enough to play off levels. Dirty tricks are for inferiors. And Munich are far from that.
They dominated the first-half, genuinely, in a way that surprised even those unconvinced by Barcelona’s recent displays against Paris St Germain and AC Milan in the San Siro.
They should have been ahead after three minutes, took a deserved lead after 25 and had two penalty appeals rejected, at least one of which looked irresistible. Perhaps it was Barcelona’s good fortune that the first chance of the game fell to Robben.
The Dutchman can be brilliant but also frustrating in his failure to see the bigger picture and so it proved with the play barely formed. Robben played the ball in to Javi Martinez who laid it back into his path, Robben surging deep into the penalty area with only keeper Victor Valdes to beat.
A square pass could have sealed it, but Robben went alone, with a poor finish aimed directly at Valdes and Barca were spared.
Leaping: Robben jumps to win a header against falling Barcelona attacker Alexis Sanchez (right)
Heroes: Bayern players, with Mario Gomez centre, celebrate at the end of the game with their fans
Not so on 25 minutes when a half clearance fell to Robben, whose floated right-foot cross was met by Dante, towering above Dani Alves, the Barcelona full-back left to deal with Bayern’s most dangerous aerial threat.
His header across was read by Muller, arriving ahead of Gerard Pique to convert with a stooping header at the far post.
Either side of this goal were penalty shouts, one optimistic, the other mystifyingly unheeded — and another triumph for Michel Platini’s extra officials.
It would have been harsh indeed had Philipp Lahm’s shot from 25 yards, which struck Pique on the arm, been adjudged a foul. Pique appeared to be making no attempt to play the ball illegally and Lahm has a viciously powerful right foot. The second seemed better grounded in reason.
Dante was close to Alexis Sanchez when he won his header but the ball clearly struck the Chilean’s arm. Desperate appeals to the goal-line official followed, but to no avail. Would the fifth or sixth best official in Hungary be brave enough to make such a call?