There is no squad in Europe more packed with talented midfielders and forwards than Bayern, no coach who sees the game quite like Pep Guardiola. To watch him in action on the touchline is to see a study in micromanagement, forever tweaking and adjusting, playing some extraordinary game of dynamic chess in which only he can see the board. If the opposition don't push men forward, he feels no need to leave men back, the result being the W-W shape he has employed at times this season, including against Manchester United on Wednesday. Critics suggest he overcomplicates the game needlessly – and the danger of shifting too many men up the pitch, quite apart from the defensive risks, is the potentially loss of verticality: if there aren't players making bursts from deep, it can be difficult to generate the sort of forward thrust necessary to puncture a blanket defence. It's certainly true that the high line Bayern play can leave them vulnerable to pace, but then the diligence of the midfield pressing tends to be enough to alleviate that. They have, after all, won 37 of 46 games under Guardiola, and a draw and two of the three defeats have come in tournaments that had already been won or after qualification for the next stage had been secured.

 

Not only is Guardiola forever tweaking but this is a side that gives him a vast array of options: Bayern can play a far greater variety of styles than his Barcelona could. Possession, of course, is king and proactivity and ball retention are the central tenets. Within that, though, there is, to take only the most obvious example, the option of playing with a false 9 in Thomas Müller or Mario Götze or of going long to Mario Mandzukic. There may be nobody with the individual game-changing brilliance of Lionel Messi, but Bayern have plenty of ways of winning.