adminLONDON. — German teams scored a point — or more accurately, seven — in their rivalry with English clubs this week, coming out on top in two of their three Champions League soccer duels, with the third resulting in a share of the spoils.
German Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich certainly had the better of English champions Manchester City throughout their clash, although they needed a 90th minute goal from former City player Jerome Boateng to win that Group E opener 1-0 on Wednesday night.
Borussia Dortmund had a much easier job against Arsenal, easing past them 2-0 with a scintillating performance at home that left the Londoners dazed and Arsene Wenger heaping praise on German counterpart Juergen Klopp.
Even troubled Schalke 04, who have scraped together only a single point from their first three German league games — and lost to third tier Dynamo Dresden in a domestic Cup match — fought their way back at Chelsea on Wednesday night, snatching a 1-1 draw through a Klaas-Jan Huntelaar equaliser.
That stalemate marked a big improvement on their two matches against Chelsea in the group stage last season, which Chelsea won 3-0 home and away.
“We are proud with what we achieved here,” Schalke coach Jens Keller told reporters, simply verbalising what could be seen on the players’ faces.
That draw not only gave coach Keller some respite, but also highlighted the distance German clubs have come in the past few seasons, a fact underlined most poignantly by the all-German Champions League final between Bayern and Dortmund at Wembley in 2013.
German football has been trailing the English game both in terms of success on the pitch and in terms of finances for years, but Bundesliga clubs are taking large strides to close that gap.
“Even a relegation-threatened team in England earn more from broadcast rights than Bayern Munich,” Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said last week, identifying one of the issues the German clubs face on what has become an uneven playing field. But while TV rights and salaries remain far bigger in the English Premier League, it has been a different story regarding success on the pitch in recent seasons.
Bayern have claimed a Champions League title and reached the final three times in the past five years, with Dortmund also making the final in 2013 and Schalke reaching the last four in 2011.
Their winning ratio against English clubs so far this season is even more impressive given that Premier League teams spent over one billion euros (US$1,29 billion) in transfers this summer, with their German counterparts splashing out less than 300 million.
Despite all their riches, English clubs have disappointed in the Champions League, notwithstanding Chelsea’s penalty shootout win over Bayern in the 2012 final. — Soccernet.
Online Reporter