Bayern's win was amply deserved because they shut down Barcelona. That is not to say that Barca didn't try: they held the ball for 66% of the game. But with aggressive marking and perfect movement without ball Bayern dried off Xavi and Iniesta. This, coupled with Messi being obviously out of shape and not ready for this level of football after the injury, caused Barca to lose their creativity. Tiki-taka only works when your pawns are in top shape and the opponent's defenders are less than stellar, and neither was the case tonight.
Bayern, instead, made the best of their relatively scarce ball possession. 14 attempts for Bayern versus 3 for Barca, 9-2 attempts on goal, and 11-4 corners. And, of course, four goals. What's not reflected in the stats is their coolness in shutting down every single dangerous Barcelona attack. Clean recoveries, blazing fast counters, and very little risk. By all means this is Heynckes's tactical masterpiece, greatly executed.
With that said, the 4-0 score is deceptive. At least two of Bayern's goals were illegal, and not just in a "eh that's debatable" way. Gomez was offside by at least two feet (about half a meter) for his 2-0 tap-in. The goal line judge was in a perfect position to see it, as evidenced by TV replays, but instead he just turns to the line judge, who should also have seen it clear as day despite being 60 feet away, and didn't. I struggle to think how such a mistake could be made by trained professionals, though of course human error is a part of the game... but, man, what an error that was! Look, you can even see it obviously from this, which is shot from the worst possible angle from which to judge offside positions...
Similarly, Robben's 3-0 strike is vitiated by Muller's illegal block on Jordi Alba, who was about to tackle Robben from behind. From both the referee's and the line judge's viewpoints it may have seemed like a legal shoulder-to-shoulder charge, but at least the goal line judge must have seen that Muller's shoulder slammed on Jordi's chest, knocking him down; and we can't say that Alba was faking, since there could have been no possible advantage in that either: he was well within the ball's playing distance and had a very good shot at Robben. See the video below. Notice how Muller is entirely uninterested in the play and goes straight for Jordi? Even the body language literally screams "foul!" This a fuck-up as big as the other one.
That's two on that same judge's conscience. Both the first and the fourth goals were legal as far as I can see.
So while Bayern's success is well deserved, this large of a margin is unfair and unwarranted. Now it's always hard to say what would have happened. Maybe Bayern would have still scored four, or perhaps Barca would not have been so demoralized and found it in them to bite back. And maybe one or two of the Barca defenders clear handballs in the box could/should have been sanctioned too, which would somewhat rebalance things. But in the end, football isn't made of ifs, buts, or maybes.
I would not be quick to discount Barcelona in the return leg. They're the world's best team, have come back from impressive deficits in the past (though never from four goals down, and certainly never this far into a top international competition) and they will be able to rely on Europe's loudest and most passionate football crowd. So it may well be interesting... but only if a shadow of tonight's Bayern shows up at Camp Nou next week. Otherwise, this is game over and Munich's third final in the last four years (lost to Inter in 2010 and to Chelsea in 2012).
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