With their return leg matches completed, Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich have registered their entries into the last eight of the UEFA Champions League. On March 11, 2014, while the Spanish side defeated Italian club AC Milan, Bayern Munich got the better of English club Arsenal.
In the other match, Arsenal had to counter a 0-2 deficit against Bayern Munich from the first leg match, which they lost in London. To their credit, Arsenal put up a great performance in the return leg match last night. The scene was the mammoth 70000-capacity Allianz Arena football stadium in Munich, which is home to Bayern. The Allianz Arena is the only stadium in the world, which has a full color-changing exterior, made possible by the use of artificially inflated ETFE plastic panels. Playing against the defending Champions, the gunners were able to make counter moves but despite several forays on the Bayern goal couldn’t find the target. The first half ended scoreless but in the 54th minute, Bastian Schweinsteiger put Bayern ahead by a goal scored from close range. Frank Ribery sent a fine cross, which found the unmarked Schweinsteiger. The Arsenal midfielder Cazrola lost track for a while and this allowed Schweinsteiger to move freely and shoot in from close range. Within three minutes from Bayern taking the lead, Arsenal equalized from a goal scored by Podolski, who had been chasing Lahm on the right flank. Podolski shoved Lahm from behind but the referee was not able to see, though Podolski briefly stopped for an instant in anticipation of a foul. But seeing that the referee had obviously overlooked the foul, Podolski produced a powerful fast rising left-footer that smashed into the net on the topside of the Bayern goal. The Germans were unhappy at the error and they charged into the Arsenal goal area with vengeance. They made several moves but could not convert those chances. Almost from closing time, Arjen Robben was wrongfully brought down by Laurent Koscieny and the referee awarded the penalty but Thomas Mueller’s penalty was saved by the Arsenal goalkeeper, Lukasz Fabianski. Mueller, otherwise, has a reputation of a merciless striker, who doesn’t fail. Bayern regretted the miss because that would have helped them end on a winning note.