Yesterday’s Champions League final has not only been very embarrassing for Bayern Munich. When Bastian Schweinsteiger missed his penalty, I also met my Waterloo.

I had predicted earlier that Bayern would beat Chelsea because they were structurally the stronger team. I based my forecast on the fact that compared to Chelsea, the value of the Bayern squad is 30 percent higher.

My reckless claim was inspired by the German economic think tank DIW. Using the same method, they successfully predicted the winner of the Euro 2008 as well as the World Cups in 2006 and 2010.

Well, Saturday’s game showed that the economic approach to football has its limits.

However, the beauty of economics is its versatility. The dismal science not only explains why Bayern should have won yesterday. At the same time, the discipline is also able to point out why the team actually lost.