Uefa Champions League last 16: Juve striker Mandzukic can exploit Bayern’s defensive shortcomings

The tape measures are out at Sabenerstrasse. Bayern Munich know all too well how high Mario Mandzukic, one of few Juventus beanpoles, stands and how skilfully he can add to his 1.90m stature with a well-timed leap.

The tape measures are out at Sabenerstrasse, practice headquarters of the Bundesliga leaders and reigning German champions. Bayern Munich know all too well how high Mario Mandzukic, one of few Juventus beanpoles, stands and how skilfully he can add to his 1.90m stature with a well-timed leap.

Pep Guardiola, the Bayern coach who had Mandzukic on his staff for a season, once said the Croatian was the best header of the ball of any centre-forward currently working at elite level.

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Mandzukic has trained normally ahead of Tuesday's first leg of the Uefa Champions League confrontation with his former club in Turin and should be available after a period out injured. The temptation for Massimiliano Allegri, the Juve coach, to use Mandzukic's target-man qualities will be the stronger given Bayern's many absences at centre-back.

Javi Martinez is injured; so is Jerome Boateng. Mehdi Benatia’s recuperation from a long-term injury is not complete and just over a week ago Holger Badstuber, whose career has been peppered with fitness setbacks, suffered another break. That means all four of the first four choices in the middle of Bayern’s defence are out. Guardiola has been using makeshift cover in Bundesliga games without dropping points. But Juve are a distinct challenge.

Serdar Tasci, a former Germany international, was brought in from Spartak Moscow as an emergency winter recruit because of the crisis of missing central defenders, but he had a mixed performance in the 3-1 win against Darmstadt at the weekend, and word is that Guardiola might prefer to use David Alaba, a left-back or indeed midfielder, again in the heart of defence alongside Joshua Kimmich, whose unusual job description is anchor midfield player.

Here is where the centimetres count. Mandzukic, and indeed Paul Pogba, Sami Khedira, and Leo Bonucci, the lofty men who form the spine of Allegri’s Juventus and can turn the penalty area into a formidable skyline at corners and attacking free kicks, would all peer down comfortably on a back four made up of Philipp Lahm, who measures 1.70m, Kimmich (1.76m), Alaba (1.80m), and left-back, Juan Bernat, a nuggety 1.70m.

“We can’t compete there,” said Guardiola of the shortfall in inches, “so we must concentrate on the second ball.”

With Mandzukic, there’s the Ex-factor too. Colleagues sense he is raring for a chance to show Guardiola and Bayern what they missed when he left the German champions in 2014, for a season at Atletico Madrid, and then to Juventus and the demanding task of stepping into the departed Carlos Tevez’s boots. “There’s no point denying it,” said Patrice Evra, the Juventus defender, “Mario will be even hungrier than the rest of us. He’ll want to make an impression on Bayern.”

Across four seasons in the Bundesliga, with Wolfsburg and then Bayern, Mandzukic scored goals at close to a ratio of one every two matches. He left Munich as Bayern’s top scorer in the 2013/14 season, but was miffed at being left out of Guardiola’s line-up for the German Cup final, and suspected that the Catalan coach’s tactical approach was not best suited to his game, which is technically smart, but very much that of the No 9, strong with his back to goal, powerful in the air.

He would not be the first centre-forward to feel underappreciated by Guardiola. Zlatan Ibrahimovic did not see eye-to-eye with the high priest of pass-press-and-move while they coincided at Barcelona. Samuel Eto’o was deemed surplus at the same club. Yet Robert Lewandowski, who fits the bill of target man in the current Bayern team, has thrived this season, spectacularly. His goal against Darmstadt was his 32nd of the campaign, across competitions, in as many matches.

The provider for Lewandowksi on Saturday was Franck Ribery, back in decisive action after a very long injury lay-off. Ribery will not help Bayern’s height issues at the back, but his return gives Guardiola an extra, welcome weapon in attack.

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