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Top Winners and Losers After Friday's Champions League Quarter-Finals Results
August 14, 2020
Bayern Munich's spot in the UEFA Champions League semifinals felt secure before the half-time whistle blew Friday.
The Bundesliga champions ran rampant through the Barcelona defense on the way to an 8-2 win that looked as easy as the scoreline indicates.
Bayern put four goals past Barca in the first half thanks to some world-class finishing from Thomas Muller and others and some poor defending from the Spanish side.
Hansi Flick's squad is now one step away from the final. They will face the winner of Saturday's clash between Manchester City and Lyon on Wednesday in Lisbon, Portugal.
Winners and Losers from Friday's Quarterfinal
Winner: Thomas Muller
Muller loves scoring against Barcelona.
The 30-year-old bagged a brace in the first 31 minutes to leave little doubt of Bayern's place in the final four.
Muller opened the scoring in the fourth minute with a shot that slid past a diving Marc-Andre ter Stegen into the left side of the net. He used a deft finish near the right post to turn in a Joshua Kimmich pass in the 31st minute.
With his pair of goals, Muller became the first player to score six times against Barcelona in European competition, per Squawka:
According to Opta, only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have more goals in the UCL knockout stages than the German:
Muller finished with two goals, an assist and five key passes on 43 touches in 90 minutes.
Winner: Joshua Kimmich
You could reserve this position for any of the Bayern Munich players who contributed to a goal Friday.
Joshua Kimmich only had one goal, which occurred on his lone shot on target, but he was active in the final third throughout the rout.
The 25-year-old handed out seven key passes, the most of any Bayern player, and picked up an assist while completing 82.5 percent of his passes.
Kimmich was one of 11 Bayern players to record a pass accuracy over 82 percent, which is one of the many mind-boggling stats to come from this blowout.
Muller and Robert Lewandowski will receive most of the attacking spotlight, but players like Kimmich could be vital to overwhelming defenses in the next two games to hoist the trophy.
Losers: Clement Lenglet and Gerard Pique
The play of Barcelona's center backs was atrocious.
Clement Lenglet and Gerard Pique were torn to shreds by the movement of Bayern's attackers, and they made countless mistakes that led to scoring opportunities.
Barcelona conceded 13 shots on target, with eight of them finding the back of the net. That is more than a 60 percent success rate against the defense of one of the top clubs in Europe.
The center backs' performance was simply unacceptable for a big club playing at this important of a stage.
The concession of eight goals marked the first time Barca let up that many tallies since the 1946 Copa del Rey round of 16, per Opta:
The embarrassment suffered by Barca will not be forgotten soon and it may lead to some changes within the squad in an attempt to get better and match the likes of Bayern next season.
Loser: Lionel Messi
If there were a player who could have rescued Barcelona from its poor start, it would have been Lionel Messi.
Unfortunately for the Spanish club, the Argentinian superstar failed to find the back of the net, and it was Luis Suarez who attempted to start a comeback with a second-half goal.
Messi managed to attempt three shots, two of which went on target, but he was not a constant factor on the ball in the final third because of Bayern's domination.
Part of the attacking failure comes down to the lineup selections from Quique Setien, who left Antoine Griezmann out of the starting lineup.
Even with a less-than-ideal attacking setup around him, Messi should have been able to create more chances to propel Barca back in the game in some capacity.
Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90. Statistics obtained from WhoScored.com.