After three consecutive semi-final defeats against Spanish clubs in the Champions League, Bayern Munich head to Atletico Madrid for today’s group match with a point to prove. “We want to show that we can do better than in the last few semi-finals. We certainly have a score to settle there,” said Bayern forward Thomas Mueller before the team jetted off to Madrid.
After the highs of beating Borussia Dortmund in the 2013 Champions League final came Bayern’s lows of semi-final exits to Real Madrid, Barcelona and then Atletico in each of the last three seasons under Pep Guardiola.
Atletico have won 25 of their last 30 home European games making the Estadio Vicente Calderon something of a cauldron. Last season’s semi-final exit at the hands of Diego Simeone’s Atletico was particularly painful for Bayern, who won the return leg 2-1 in Munich after losing 1-0 in Madrid as the Spanish side reached the final on away goals.
“In the last three years, we played three times against Spanish teams and always lost there,” said Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. “We saw how strong Atletico are last season and you can’t get much more of a tougher test. “Now we have the chance to show with Carlo (Ancelotti) that we can get at least a point there — or even three.”
After Guardiola failed to steer Bayern to the Champions League final, his successor Ancelotti is the Bavarian giants’ not-so-secret weapon. Two years ago, Ancelotti’s Real Madrid won the 2014 Champions League final with a 4-1 extra-time win over Atletico.
“I really like Madrid and I’m looking forward to going back, I had two wonderful years there,” said Ancelotti. Sightseeing will be the last thing on the Italian’s programme, with Ancelotti more concerned about French forward Antoine Griezmann, whose goals knocked Bayern out of Europe last May. “He could play at any big club in Europe,” said Ancelotti.
Bayern smashed Russian side Rostov 5-0 in Munich in their opening Group D match, the same night Atletico won 1-0 at PSV Eindhoven. But the German team’s players know they will be in for a much sterner challenge today.
“It will be a difficult fight in Madrid and we have to at least get a few goals,” said Bayern captain Philipp Lahm. Bayern defender Mats Hummels, who trained on Monday after limping out of Saturday’s 1-0 win at Hamburg with a knee injury, says the Bundesliga leaders have a “pretty tricky task against one of the top favourites to win the Champions League”.
Meanwhile, Rummenigge has defended Franck Ribery after the latest in a string of off-the-ball incidents.
The fiery Ribery will be under the spotlight today in Madrid and Bayern’s senior figures have warned him to keep his cool in the cauldron of the Calderon.
“Everyone has spoken to him (about it), the coach, his fellow players,” said Rummenigge. “But one shouldn’t overplay it. What happened on Saturday was exaggerated out of proportion.”
The 33-year-old former France winger pinched the face of opposition striker Nicolai Mueller in Saturday’s 1-0 German league win at Hamburg, which saw him booked.
It was the latest in a number of incidents involving Ribery, who has been sent off six times in his career. At minnows Carl Zeiss Jena, he struck a Jena defender on the head, but escaped punishment, while vying for the ball in a 5-0 German Cup romp at the end of August.
In the pre-season German Super Cup final he shoved his elbow in the face of Borussia Dortmund’s Felix Passlack, which earned him a yellow card, and pushed over Inter Milan’s Felipe Melo in July’s pre-season tour of the USA.
Uli Hoeness, who is set to be re-elected as Bayern’s president in November, says Ribery is being targeted. “It is obvious that the opponents now want to provoke him into a red card,” Hoeness told broadcaster Sport1. “But it is not always easy. He is always challenged in an incredibly hard and brutal manner and he is a very emotional person.”
Hoeness said the Frenchman would be “well advised to restrain himself”.

Fixtures
(all kick-offs 1845 GMT)
Group A
At Sofia: Ludogrets Razgrad (BUL) v Paris Saint-Germain (FRA)
At London: Arsenal (ENG) v Basel (SUI)
Group B
At Istanbul, Turkey: Besiktas (TUR) v Dynamo Kiev (UKR)
At Naples, Italy: Napoli (ITA) v Benfica (POR)
Group C
At Moenchengladbach, Germany: Borussia Moenchengladbach (GER) v Barcelona (ESP)
At Glasgow, Scotland: Celtic (SCO) v Manchester City (ENG)
Group D
At Madrid: Atletico Madrid (ESP) v Bayern Munich (GER)
At Rostov-on-Don, Russia: Rostov (RUS) v PSV Eindhoven (NED)