When the Semi Final draws came out for the UEFA Champions League on the 12th of April, 2013 everybody was rubbing their hands and waiting for a Messi v Ronaldo face off to finally put to rest all the claims of one player being better than the other. But due to the recent turn in results where Barca were thrashed 4-0 by Bayern and Madrid were thrashed 4-1 by Lewandowski it seems highly improbable that we will see even one of these players on the biggest stage in the European Competition let alone both of them together.

Now all this brings us to the debate which the whole of the footballing population is engulfed in 'Is this the end of the domination of the two Spanish Superpowers in Europe?'

My answer to this will be 'No'.

Although both the Spanish teams were outclassed, outplayed and what not by the two German Clubs, you can't just look beyond the two Spanish Giants the reason being they have been consistently performing at a high level (Barcelona) and in recent times under the stewardship of Jose Mourinho Real Madrid are catching up with the Catalans.

When it comes to the two German Clubs, Bayern have been consistently peaking and if they happen to make it through to the finals this year, it will be their third in the last four years. And Dortmund though they are the only undefeated team in the Champions League this season, they failed to make it through the Group Stages last year. Although they have been doing well in their League with winning the last two seasons and in line to finish second this time but it takes a lot more than to match up to the two Spanish teams.

Every team is entitled for a bad game and so the two teams in question can just claim that they had a bad game.

The fact that everybody misses is that Bundesliga is a 18 team league which means 4 fewer games for the two German Clubs. Add to that the German Cup is a one leg affair which further lessens the number of games that they play. Due to this reduction in the number of games that the German teams have to play they tend to get a decent amount of layoff when it comes to winters and do not have to play games as frequently as the Spanish teams when the show returns.

This is surely not the end of an era as both the teams have sufficient bank balances to reinforce their squads with the only question haunting Barcelona & Real Madrid will be the 'Age of Xavi' & 'Emminent Departure of Jose Mourinho' respectively.

The upcoming second legs will give us a lot clearer picture of what the future is going to be for these two Spanish teams.