Also: Heinze will have a hard look at Manchester United
MILAN // Revenge? Arjen Robben dismissed the idea.
"True revenge would be another Bayern versus Inter Milan final," he told reporters ahead of tonight's game between the gold and silver medallists from the 2009/10 Champions League. "This is only a last-16 game, but I do think Inter will find Bayern very different this time."
Certainly, the Bayern line-up has altered greatly since the last final.
A first look through the central spine of the side who lost 2-0 to Inter last May: Mark van Bommel, the midfielder, has left the club; so has Martin Demichelis, the defender. Hans-Jorg Butt has been replaced in goal by the younger Thomas Kraft, while Ivic Olic, the centre-forward nine months ago, is a long-term absentee with injury.
Daniel van Buyten, the central defender, usually sits among the replacements these days. Quite a revolution, then, under Louis van Gaal, the head coach who criticised Inter for their negative football after losing the final.
Fewer than half the Bayern XI that began the final at the Bernabeu are likely to start in San Siro.
That testifies to the corrective impulses of Van Gaal during the course of a season in which Bayern have been inconsistent, although a run of five wins from their last six matches in Germany is good form to have gathered ahead of the resumption of the Champions League.
We should not be too distracted by the upheavals in the squad, advises Robben: Inter will see a stronger Bayern tonight.
"Franck Ribery will be there, for a start," he said, "and things are much easier for us when Franck is on the pitch."
Ribery and Robben - one on each flank, sometimes swapping with each other from left to right - are the tantalising tandem of Van Gaal's Bayern: brilliant, decisive wide players but frustrating because, so often, one or the other is unavailable through injury.
Bayern fans have a shorthand form to refer to the pair: they abbreviate and combine their two surnames to spell "Rob-bery". It works.
Circumstances frequently deprive the coach of the chance to stretch opposition defences with a full Rob-bery combination. Van Gaal had both of them in decent states of fitness at the end of last May. Alas, Ribery would be suspended for the final, due to a nasty foul he had committed in the semi-final against Lyon.
Bayern know enough about Inter to want plenty of width, and will encourage Thomas Muller to explore the channels outside the opposition penalty area as well as Robben and Ribery.
Inter have looked vulnerable to lively wingers this season, notably against Tottenham Hotspur's Gareth Bale in the group stage of the competition. Maicon, the right-back, has not had his best season so far, and Christian Chivu, at left-back, was tortured last May by Robben running at him.
Nor will it be a full-strength Inter. Lucio, the former Bayern defender, remains a doubt with injury. Walter Samuel, his centre-back partner from last season's final triumph, is also out, as, probably, is Diego Milito, the scorer of both goals in the Bernabeu victory.
"Bayern have all their injured players recovered in time," said Leonardo, the coach in charge of Inter for the first time in a European tie. "But I hope they will still be impressed when they look at who we have in the line-up."
There, the German champions should see at least seven of the men who outsmarted them nine months ago in Madrid.
11.45pm, Aljazeera Sport + 5
