The 61-year-old says that while the Blaugrana’s ‘Plan A’ is “perfect”, the Catalans have no back-up plan, as underlined by last season’s Champions League semi-finals
The reigning European champions qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League with a 1-0 victory away to Viktoria Plzen on Tuesday that came courtesy of a second-half header from substitute Mario Mandzukic.
Hoeness believes that the change of system implemented by coach Pep Guardiola during the game proved decisive, and also served to underline that the Bavarians are more versatile and adaptable than Barca, whom they routed 7-0 on aggregate in last season’s tournament.
“Last night showed the big difference between our game compared to Barcelona’s,” the 61-year-old told TZ.
“They [Barcelona] have a Plan A, which is perfect, but they have no Plan B, as they showed in their two games against us [in the Champions League] last season.
“Pep introduced Mandzukic to the game and he made a big difference. He played with no striker, saw it wasn’t working and realised Mario could change things.”
Hoeness also wanted to play down all the excitement surrounding Bayern’s 36-game undefeated run.
“All this talk of the unbeaten run is too hyped for me,” the former West Germany international confessed. “The whole 36 games will mean nothing if we lose at home to Augsburg in the derby on Saturday.”
