After the final whistle in Saturday's match against Bremen the Bayern stars immediately turned their mental focus to Juventus, and on Monday afternoon they took physical action at the Säbener Strasse facility too, where Pep Guardiola started to prepare his troops for Wednesday's Champions League last sixteen return. The German record champions are very confident in the build-up to the showdown.
“A 2-2 draw in Turin is a superb result. We're in a very, very good position,” commented Philipp Lahm, “now we're playing at home. We know how strong we are here. We can always score two, three or four goals.” The men from Munich have won all three of their Champions League home matches so far this season, by 5-0, 5-1 and 4-0 scorelines. “Ideally” Bayern will take the lead against Juventus too.
'Mistakes will be punished'
However, the Bavarians know they will encounter heavyweight opponents. “This is the Champions League, we're up against last year's finalists, it's absolutely top-class,” according to Lahm: “We saw in the first leg that you can't afford to make any mistakes at this level, against such a top-notch team. A clever Italian team will punish you immediately.”
The FCB skipper, who is set to make his 101st Champions League appearance, expects a match similar to the first leg in Turin three weeks ago: “We won't change our play. We're a very attacking team, we want to score goals,” added Lahm. On the other hand, Juventus will stick to their style of play too: “They remain Italian opponents who'll wait for us to make mistakes and try to punish them mercilessly. Two different systems will clash, both at an incredibly high level.”
Topics of this article