Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

It seems a massive shame that the day after what was probably Basel’s best result in their history, after knocking out Manchester United earlier in the competition, all the attention is focused on Bavaria’s finest.
So, whilst Bayern Munich are still heavy favourites to go through, despite Basel’s 1-0 home win in Europe being an excellent result, it has to be pointed out just what an immense season the Swiss minnows are having.
Crucially, all of their best players are young and should be around for many years to come. Xherdan Shaqiri (20) will of course ply his trade at Bayern next season, but the likes of goalkeeper Yann Sommer (23) and midfielder Granit Xhaka (19) will be two of the most sought after players in European football.
Meanwhile, goal scorer Valentin Stocker is just 22. And of course, coach Heiko Vogel, who is German and must have taken much satisfaction from the result, is only 36, and looks to be this season’s Andre Villas Boas.
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Now on to Bayern Munich… And this is what president Uli Hoeness had to say after the game in a post-match interview:
“Just stop with your f***ing handshake questions. You just keep talking about that handshake, for f*** sake! Who wants to shake hands after such a match?! Are we at a boarding school for girls here or what?”
Video of Hoeness’ rant (in German) is here.
The incident in question centres around when Franck Ribery was substituted with 19 minutes remaining for Thomas Muller. The French winger walked straight past Bayern coach Juup Heynckes without so much as even a glance.
Footage of Franck Ribery refusing to shake hands with Juup Heynckes is here.
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Basel keeper Yann Sommer had a fine game for the Swiss team and once again Manuel Neuer came up trumps with a wonder save for Bayern.
It came in the first half from an Aleksandr Dragovic header and has surprisingly received very little fan fare despite it being up there as one of the saves of the season.
Manuel Neuer’s wonder save v Basel is on this video.
Related link: Was David De Gea’s save v Chelsea the save of the season so far?