German blitzkrieg of Spain to spark backlash

Flipping incredible.

What is, I hear you ask. The fact that not a single player from Spain has scored a goal in the semifinals of the Uefa Champions League as the Bundesliga left La Liga licking its gaping 4x4 wounds. That's what flipping unimaginable. Remember Cristiano Ronaldo is Portuguese.

Add that one man fired four goals in the Real mauling of Madrid by Borussia Dortmund and you know the world watched a revolution in motion as Spain suffered some German-precision pain.

On his day all you can do is pray is what someone wrote about Chris Gayle (see page 10). That remark was a salutation of the Caribbean cricket colossus who completed the fastest century in any format of the gentlemen's game in the IPL. Let me borrow the same line to doff my cap to Robert. Not Mugabe, the 13-year-old Zim war veterans have beaten me to that.

It is classy fox-in-the-box Robert Lewandowski one is giving plaudits to. The 24-year-old Pole is a polished high-performance machine powered by a bullish drive to bang the bulls-eye any which way.

Thank heavens the bugger was injured when Bafana went to war against Poland in Warsaw. Otherwise our soft-as- a-baby's-bum defence would have been shred into short shrift by the lethal Lewandowski. Granted, the Poles are not teeming with talent like Dortmund. They don't play the fast, furious, flowing and fluid football of Jurgen Klopp's side.

But one got a chill in the spine watching Lewandowski's close control, turn and shoot tearing Madrid apart. It was incisive.

It is halftime of course as Lionel Messi's Barcelona and Cristiano Ronaldo's Madrid trail 4-0 and 4-1 respectively to Thomas Muller's Bayern Munich and Lewandowski's Dortmund. Lewandowski's exploits bit a huge chunk of the ego of the self-styled Special One, the One or whatever the eccentric Mourinho calls himself nowadays. But Mourinho is not a three-time Champions League winner for nothing.

A Santiago Bernabeu backlash is on the cards, given a glimmer of hope by the solitary away strike by Cristiano Ronaldo. Expect Mourinho to throw everything he has at Tuesday's return leg at the Bernabeu butchery seeing as Barca have almost sewn up the La Liga campaign.

But bet on the Dortmund juggernaut sitting back at your own peril. They'll be determined to finish the demolition job. It is also inconceivable that the soon-to- be Pep Guardiola's Bayern will come to the Camp Nou cathedral to park the bus on Wednesday - they don't have a reverse gear.

Barca's greatest challenge is to produce a performance that will dispel the one-man team theory attached to them by the brilliance of Lionel Messi.

They are dismal when the Argentinian is abysmal. Wednesday is their chance to convince us all that if their slogan is more than just a club, they too are more than just Messi.

It would be folly to think the Spanish giants don't have it in them to salvage some pride - that's all I think they will do.

But what has brought about the ascendancy of German football and swung the pendulum of European club football in their favour? The German revolution didn't just pop out of a lucky packet.

When the Germans realised that their dominance at club and country level was dwindling, they acted. They implemented a 10-year plan with clear goals of developing players, reinvigorating their style of play, striking an intricate balance between outstanding offensive play and impressive defensive duties.

They knew they were going down and acted and are now reaping the rewards of investing in their youth.

What lesson can South African football take from this. If you invest wisely a return on your investment is certain.

The only thing certain with Safa are power struggles, match-fixing and back-stabbing. Flipping unbelievable.