I'll agree with Mourinho's sentiments that an El Clasico sandwiched between both CL semis cost both Madrid and Barca. Chelsea made 8 changes to the team that beat Barca at The Bridge to draw with Arsenal while Bayern rested virtually their whole squad when they played and won over the weekend, knowing that a win for Dortmund would guarantee them the Bundesliga title, which they did. The laws of basic science cannot be discounted, Madrid and Barca were drained physically and mentally after El Clasico.

I always knew Bayern would score at Madrid and after Rela going 2 nil up in 14 min, Bayern picked their tempo and Gomez and Robben were particularly wasteful infront of goal - heck, even Casillas almost saved Robbens pena that got them back into the game!

Clearly Mourinho thought he'd win in regular time and saw no need for his players to practice penalties like most teams do when the reach semis of continental competitions e.g. World Cup, Euros, AFCO,Copa America etc. Most of those semis are decide by penas and guys practice for them. Ofcourse Neuer was good but when people like Ramos take penas, you know there's something wrong.

@Marty, Bayern will be without Alaba, Badstuber and Gustavo, all key players, so both teams will be weakened. I also agree with Jupp, yellows should fall off at the finals, even at the risk of players playing badly during semis. Can you imagine a Barca Real final without Messi and CR7 because they picked up silly suspenisons for minor infringements?No!

I think Bayern have enough to trouble Chelsea who I think will miss Ramirez badly. Robben, Ribery and Gomez are a nightmare to many defenses (and Chelsea will not be playing excessive defending like they did against Barca since this is a final) and with the fans behind Bayern, they should win it. Football, ofcourse, is stranger than fiction.

We have been written off so many times..... so am not suprised