The task is mountainous. The odds firmly against. But Arsene Wenger insisted Arsenal can conquer the Twin Peaks that face them here in Bavaria, writes Martin Lipton in Munich.
Wenger appeared not to be aware until told on Monday that the statistics are against his team.
The facts, though, do make grim reading for the Gunners as they prepare to try to stun the Allianz Arena.
In the 21 years of the Champions League, only two of 43 sides have come back from losing the first leg at home to go through - and Ajax in 1996 and Inter Milan against Bayern in the Allianz Arena three years ago only trailed by a single goal, not by two.
More importantly, though, it is Pep Guardiola’s Bayern standing in their way.
Champions of Europe, the best team in the world, on a 16-game Bundesliga winning streak, with a domestic goal difference of a staggering plus-141 over the past two seasons, 20 points clear in their title race.
The team nobody wanted to draw - and with Franck Ribery back to bolster their attacking armoury after he missed last month’s win at the Emirates.
Wenger, though, refused to bow to the inevitable, recalling how, last season, his men did win 2-0 against Jupp Heynckes’ team, a goal short of eliminating the eventual champions.
Last term, too, the gap between the sides in the first leg had seemed immense.
Not so last month, with Wenger agreeing Mesut Ozil’s early penalty miss, and Wojciech Szczesny’s red card, had been pivotal.
Wenger believes Ozil has a score to settle with his fellow countrymen, a point to prove. As do the other Germans in his squad.
“Ozil started quite well in the first leg,” said Wenger. “But he was affected by the fact he missed the penalty. It affected his performance because he felt he let the team down.
“Since then he has recovered, he had a great performance on Saturday and I’m confident he will have a good game.
“Lukas Podolski is in very good form. He was injured for a long time but he’s now come back and in the run-in, in the last 10 games, he can play a very important role. And Per Mertesacker, everybody knows in Germany and England how good he is. He has become a very good player.”
Indeed so, but a glance at Guardiola’s wealth of options, with the likes of Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mario Mandzukic unlikely to start, demonstrates the scale of the task.
Arsenal will have to play the perfect game. And, most crucially, score the first goal, offering the chance to make Bayern nervous, fearful of the consequences of throwing the tie away.
“I don’t think it’s the key to going through - but it would be helpful,” conceded Wenger, in a moment of rare understatement, as he recalled glory nights in Milan, Madrid, Turin and this season’s triumph in Dortmund.
“We have won everywhere in Europe and if we can go 1-0 up it makes the result absolutely possible.”
If Arsenal can defy history, it would be their greatest hour. But it will take something very, very special. Something truly momentous.