The Blues had enjoyed arguably their best-ever night at the Allianz Arena when winning the trophy back in 2012, but since that famous encounter had lost each time they'd faced Bayern.
Tall order for Chelsea despite recent European run
Not to mention that the hosts had also lost only one of their last 11 home games against English teams in the premier European competition (W8, D2).
To that end it was always going to be a tall order for the world champions despite having won 12 of their 13 European games since they were last in the Champions League in 2022/23.
At 25 years and 122 days, Enzo Maresca had named Chelsea's third youngest-ever starting line-up in a UCL away game after the fixture vs Ajax in October 2019 (25yrs 71d) and in November 2004 vs CSKA Moscow (24yrs 323d).
Harry Kane starting for Bayern meant that he'd done so in more games against Chelsea (21) than against any other team in his career. Eight goals in total before Wednesday's fixture could certainly have been improved upon, albeit he had scored in his previous two games against the west Londoners.
Bayern took the initiative
As might've been expected the Bavarians took the initiative, and even before Trevoh Chalobah unfortunately scored an own goal on 20 minutes to put the hosts one up, Bayern had passed up four reasonable chances.
Kane then took centre-stage, winning a penalty and converting it just six minutes later to give his side a buffer. That gave the forward another slice of Champions League history, becoming just the third player after Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar to score 20+ goals for two different teams in the competition.
The England captain's international colleague, Cole Palmer, wasn't going to be outdone, however. Having only scored his first goal from open play since January in the weekend's fixture against Brentford, he followed it up with a trademark strike before the half-hour to bring Chelsea right back into the game.
That was his 73rd goal involvement (45 goals, 28 assists) in 100 games in all competitions for the Stamford Bridge outfit, and makes his importance to the side abundantly clear.
Although Chelsea appeared to be in ascendancy once Palmer had registered, with a flurry of efforts at goal giving them impetus in an attacking sense, Bayern's 67.9% possession leading into half-time suggested it was they, in fact, who had complete control of the game.
Kimmich imperious in midfield
Joshua Kimmich's 95.4% pass completion stat was another indication of the hosts' dominance despite the Blues' best efforts.
Though the most passes he made to one player (11) were backwards to Dayot Upemecano, Chelsea were still unable to stop the 10 out balls to Konrad Leimer or the eight to Michael Olise, with much of Bayern's momentum coming from the former Crystal Palace man.
The second-half began in a similar way to the first, and Vincent Kompany's side had fired three shots on target before Kane bagged his second and Bayern's third just after the hour mark.
It was the striker's 13th UCL goal since the start of 2024/25, level with Raphinha and Serhou Guirassy. No one has scored more in the same time frame.
With Joao Pedro the only Chelsea player to put up any sort of fight, winning 10 of his 16 duels, the writing appeared to be on the wall for the visitors by that point.
Indeed, just 10 tackles made by the entire Blues team, two of which were from Joao Pedro, showed a lack of spirit and desire which isn't likely to please Maresca.
Chelsea subs didn't alter the game
Despite the Italian attempting to change the course of the game by bringing on Andrey Santos and Alejandro Garnacho, the pattern remained the same.
Bayern's manipulation of the ball and 65.5% possession in the second-half had the visitors chasing shadows for long periods and, unable to make any sort of headway, Chelsea ended the game with the unwanted record of having lost their last three in the competition.
That's their longest Champions League losing streak since at least 2004/05, and has to be a real wake-up call for the club.
When the dust settles the west Londoners will look to try and accentuate the positives from the match of course. Every player that played some part in the game bar Estevao won possession back at least once for example.
However, they'll see that having more crosses (14 to 12), more total dribbles (16 to 10) and the same amount of touches in the opposition box (23) is only going to serve to highlight their profligacy on the night.
With Man Utd next up in the Premier League and Jose Mourinho set to return to Stamford Bridge with his new club Benfica in a fortnight for the Blues' next UCL assignment, there's some serious work on the training pitch to be done.
Catch up on Bayern vs Chelsea here.
