Slick Bayern at ease among knockouts

FC Bayern München captain Mark van Bommel believes the UEFA Champions League knockout format suits the German titleholders and is the reason behind the club's contrasting form on the European and domestic stages.

Different mentality
A run of three Bundesliga games without a win has seen Bayern slip to fifth in the standings, out of the UEFA Champions League places. However, they already have one foot in the quarter-finals of this year's edition after last week's 5-0 first-leg win at Sporting Clube de Portugal. "This is very different [to the league]," Van Bommel said. "Now we have two games to decide everything. In the Bundesliga, you are forced to look for victories, but [away to Sporting] we would have been satisfied with a 0-0 or 1-1 draw. In the Champions League we focus on two games, away and at home. It is very different to the Bundesliga."

Deceptive scoreline
Bayern's impressive first-leg triumph leaves them as clear favourites to progress to the next round but Van Bommel says it could have been a very different story had Sporting converted their first-half chances in Lisbon. "If you win 5-0 then it seems it was an easy day, but that really wasn't the case," he said. "In the first half we actually should have conceded a goal before Franck [Ribéry] scored. After our goal they were forced to attack, because 0-1 is a very bad score in Europe for a home team. We were given some space on the pitch and used it wisely. When you win 5-0 in a European game, away, then you have to be happy.

Good luck
"It was a very big victory and we are delighted with that, but we certainly didn't expect it," Van Bommel added. "We played very defensively, I think. Two lines of four men, with two strikers up front, trying to prevent our opponents from reaching their strikers. I think we did that well. Sure, they had some chances, but you have to be a bit lucky, and with the class of Franck [Ribéry] we went into half time with a 1-0 lead. We won 5-0 at Anderlecht last year. That was a similar kind of game. We had the same luck [at Sporting] and cannot complain."