Germany star Thomas Mueller has insisted the prospect of Saturday’s Champions League final being settled by penalties will not bother Bayern Munich, despite suffering the heart-break of losing the 2012 final in a shoot-out.
Bayern take on Bundesliga rivals Borussia Dortmund at Wembley in their third Champions League final in four years, having lost last season’s showcase finale ‘dahoam’ — at home — to Chelsea in Munich, two years after falling at the final hurdle to Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan.
In the 2012 final, Mueller put Bayern ahead on 83 minutes, only for Didier Drogba to equalise two minutes from time from Chelsea’s first corner of the game.
The Ivory Coast striker then fired home the decisive spot-kick to win the shoot-out 4-3 and ruin the Munich party, but Mueller insists there will be no worried looks in the Bayern camp should the Wembley final go to penalties.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with self-confidence but we had the history of the penalty shoot-out in Madrid,” he said after Bayern beat Real Madrid on spot-kicks in last year’s Champions League semi-final.
“Besides, you never know who is going to finish up on the pitch.
“Some are better at taking penalties than others but I don’t think anyone will wet their pants over it.”
Despite his confidence, Mueller has hit 50 penalties in training and many of his team-mates have also dedicated extra time to practising the dreaded spot-kicks.
Regardless of how Saturday’s showcase is decided, Mueller underlined just how eager he was to finally end up on the winning side.
“When you lose three times, you get stamped as a ‘loser’ – not undeservedly so. And you don’t want that,” said the 23-year-old.
“We just want to bring this bloody thing back to Munich.”
Having dominated the Bundesliga, the Bavarians swept aside Barcelona 7-0 on aggregate with some breathtaking football in the semi-final and coach Jupp Heynckes is confident Bayern can win over the regulation 90 minutes.
“For the last few weeks we’ve been able to work on things, automatic processes have been honed and this includes situations like penalties,” said the 68-year-old, who will step down at the end of the season.
“Penalties are totally different situations to training but my players have quite simply, on a one-to-one basis, gone out there this week and practised penalty kicks, as well as other set plays.”
“I don’t attach too much importance to that because this season in the Bundesliga we’ve achieved extraordinary things.”
Having dropped just 11 points as they won the league title by 25 points, Bayern take on VfB Stuttgart next Saturday in the German Cup final on June 1 at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium.
Heynckes, who will be replaced as head coach by Pep Guardiola, will bow out in Berlin with his side bidding to become the first German team to win the treble of European, league and cup titles, if they also win at Wembley.
Bayern beat Dortmund 1-0 in the German Cup quarter-final in February, then drew 1-1 in Dortmund in their recent Bundesliga clash and Heynckes just wants his team to carry their good form through to Wembley.
“It’s been the best Bundesliga season for any team in 50 years of the league,” said Heynckes, after his team broke or equalled 25 Bundesliga records this season.
“In recent weeks we had one draw and won all our other games.
“So we have aspirations to carry on that way and we’ll be doing that on Saturday, then next week in Berlin in the German Cup final.”
Euro final penalties won't bother Bayern
