05.07.2010 12:27

Barça v Bayern in South Africa

Jesús Carrillo

Wednesday’s World Cup semi-final between Spain and Germany will involve eight Barça players and another eight from Bayern Munich. A sort of Bayern v Barça on the international stage.

Right from the start of the tournament, Barça and Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich have supplied the biggest number of players to the World Cup: 14 from Barça and 12 from Bayern.

Eight for Spain, eight for Germany

The two finalists in the 2008 European Championship in will now be fighting it out for a place in next weekend’s World Cup final. Only six players from the Vienna final will be present again: Xavi, Iniesta and Carles Puyol for Spain and Lahm, Schweinsteiger and Klose for Germany. They’re be joined by Piqué, Busquets, Pedro, Victor Valdes and Villa – who missed out on the EURO 2008 final due to injury. In additional to the three players mentioned before, the German quad also features Toni Kroos, Mario Gomez, Butt, Badstuber and Müller, though the latter is suspended for the semi-final.

Parallel seasons

Barça and Bayern have had pretty similar seasons. Bayern, managed by former Barça coach Van Gaal, won the Bundesliga after a close battle with Schalke 04 that lasted almost until the last match while Barça broke the points record in the Spanish league thanks to a heart-stopping duel with Real Madrid. Both teams have built their success on a solid foundation of players developed through their own youth systems.

Starting line-ups favour Barça

However, while both teams have contributed the same number of players to the Spain and German squads respectively, it’s rather different when we look the usual starting line-ups. Piqué, Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Sergio Busquets and David Villa are fixtures for Vicente del Bosque with Pedro playing the role of super-sub.

But German coach Joachim Low has limited the Bayern contingent to four players since the third match of the tournament (Schweinsteiger, Klose, Müller and Lahm), relegating Badstuber, Kroos and Gomez to the final minutes. Goalkeepers Victor Valdes and Butt have yet to make their debuts.