Lahm: I'm not quite sure. It might be viewed differently if we were playing at home first as we are very, very strong at home. On the road, things have been looking a bit differently this season. But in the end it doesn’t really matter who the favourite is. Two top teams will play against each other, which is actually quite a normal thing to happen in a Champions League semi-final.
DFB.de: What would be a good result in Barcelona?
Lahm: An away goal would be great. And like I said before: A player never wants to lose a game. The same will apply on Wednesday in Spain.
World Champion Philipp Lahm spoke about FC Bayern München's upcoming Champions League semi-final clash with FC Barcelona on Wednesday (20:45 CEST) and looked back on the games against Leverkusen and Dortmund.
DFB.de: Mr. Lahm, the game with Leverkusen ended in a 2-0 defeat. No football player likes to lose games, especially if you're playing for FC Bayern. But were the players perhaps already thinking about the Champions League game against Barcelona on Wednesday as you’ve already wrapped up the Bundesliga title and injuries had to be avoided at all costs?
Philipp Lahm: You said it: No football players like to lose games. We went onto the pitch looking to play well and win the game. The most important thing now, after we lost the game, is to look ahead to Wednesday and as far as I can tell, no players suffered any injuries today.
DFB.de: Normally you would look forward to an encounter with Barca at the Camp Nou. Is it a different situation for you now with all the injuries?
Lahm: The situation is similar to five weeks ago before we played FC Porto in the quarter-finals. It was a tough test for us and we fully expect the same thing in Barcelona. We won the Bundesliga title last weekend and now we have shifted all our attention to the Champions League. The anticipation for the game is huge. It's difficult to keep the concentration level up in the Bundesliga having already won the title, especially if you have big games during the week like we did with Dortmund in the DFB Cup last week and now Barcelona.
DFB.de: What is your verdict on Bayern's performance in the 2-0 defeat against Leverkusen?
Lahm: Once again, we failed to score the required goals today. For long spells of the match, we created the better opportunities. We had the only real chances in the first half, when Mario Götze was one-on-one with Bernd Leno. In the second half we had three big chances. The same thing happened on Tuesday against Dortmund. Missing big opportunities like that is not a good thing. Most likely, Barcelona will not allow us to create many chances either, so we have to take advantage of the chances we do create for ourselves. On the other hand, we played with a completely different team and lots of new players today. You can't immediately expect everything to run smoothly.
DFB.de: FC Bayern are the favourites in most of their games. Many experts favour Barcelona at the moment. Is that an advantage for you?
Lahm: I'm not quite sure. It might be viewed differently if we were playing at home first as we are very, very strong at home. On the road, things have been looking a bit differently this season. But in the end it doesn’t really matter who the favourite is. Two top teams will play against each other, which is actually quite a normal thing to happen in a Champions League semi-final.
DFB.de: What would be a good result in Barcelona?
Lahm: An away goal would be great. And like I said before: A player never wants to lose a game. The same will apply on Wednesday in Spain.
