As Real Madrid was celebrating their effective La Liga win with a victory over fierce rivals Barcelona at the weekend, Bayern Munich watched on as celebrations in Dortmund confirmed what had been widely accepted since their defeat to Borussia 10 days prior. For the first time in 16 years Bayern would go two seasons without a Bundesliga title.

Yet there is certainly a sense that few people among Bayern's illustrious hierarchy will be thinking of the Bundesliga if the Bavarians can make it past Real on Wednesday and through to a Champions League final in their Allianz Arena home.

With a 2-1 lead from the first-leg in Munich, Bayern showed that they were capable of competing on level terms with the favored Los Blancos.

Though Real coach Jose Mourinho claimed afterward that Mario Gomez's late strike was out of context, the warning signs had been there with Gomez having more than one good chance prior to converting in the last minute.

Much of what was a deserved 2-1 score was down to Bayern coach Juup Heynckes arguably getting the better of his illustrious Portuguese counterpart at the Allianz.

Typically both teams have played replica systems throughout the season; two holding midfielders behind a line of three featuring two wide men cutting inside, behind a lone striker.

But last week Heynckes surprised many with his decision to leave out the more acclaimed Thomas Muller in preference for Toni Kroos.

Although nominally occupying similar positions, Kroos started from a deeper point than Muller does. Crucially Kroos also occupied a more withdrawn position than his counterpart in the Real side, Mesut Ozil. With Kroos superb, Bayern was able to get a crucial hold on the midfield for much of the match. That being true, even with the under-par performance of Bastian Schweinsteiger.

There is no suggestion that Bayern will change from that formula for the second-leg, however Mourinho must decide how he tries to counter that, with replacing Ozil for Esteban Granero an option. But, with an unchanged side played so well in the win over Barcelona, it is quite a dilemma.

One change that appears likely for Real is at left-back, with Marcelo coming in for Fabio Coentrao. The Portuguese cost a lavish €30 million ($39m) last summer and has generally been viewed as a better defensive option than his marauding Brazilian counterpart. But Coentrao has faced a torrent of criticism for his performance in Munich that was crowned by his allowing of Philipp Lahm to bypass him with ease and supply the cross for Gomez's potentially crucial goal.

It may have been Coentrao's defensive lapse that was highlighted, but he first-leg reinforced the belief that both defenses are vulnerable.

Sergio Ramos' inability to clear led to Franck Ribery's opener, while Bayern's defense was caught ball watching to allow Ronaldo to tee-up Ozil for Real's equalizer. Even for Gomez's goal, for which Coentrao was so heavily blamed, Real should still have stopped the ball from reaching the German striker.

All that means there are likely to be goals once more in the second-leg.

Both teams should get on the scoresheet and this one could well go to extra time at least. And while Real Madrid deserve to be thought of as one of the best two sides in Europe and thus should reach the final, soccer rarely pans out that way. With Bayern having been able to focus on the Champions League fully for the past couple of weeks, while Real have beeing slogging it out with a full-strength lineup for La Liga, the Germans could just have the edge when it counts.

Real Madrid 2-2 Bayern Munich

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