Key events
40 min: City calm themselves down with some sterile possession. Probably a good idea. This game has been on a rolling boil since the off. It’s wonderful fun!
39 min: Bayern go up the other end with the intention of hitting City with a double whammy. Kimmich aims for the top right but sends his shot wide and high.
Haaland misses from the spot!
37 min: Haaland is forced to wait as Goretzka wanders into the box, picking up something thrown from the crowd. The former Borussia Dortmund striker steps up … and then sends a rising drive pinging off the top of the bar!
Penalty to City!
35 min: Gundogan aims a low drive towards the bottom right. A deflection sends the ball wide right of goal. That deflection comes off the tip of Upamecano’s elbow, which had been behind the defender’s back until he inexplicably brought it back out! A yellow for the increasingly hapless defender, and the referee points to the spot.
33 min: Grealish embarks on a power dribble down the left, but his flicked cross is sent towards nobody in particular, and flies out harmlessly on the other side of the pitch. City haven’t done too much in attack, but they don’t need to, and by dousing Bayern’s early fire, have quietened the crowd, a job in itself.
31 min: Corner for Bayern out on the right. It’s whipped to the near post, where Choupo-Moting flashes a header harmlessly wide. Goal kick … over which Ederson takes his sweet time. He goes down, surveying his paw, then upon receiving a talking-to from the referee, gets back up and restarts the game. The home fans unhappy.
29 min: Musiala shapes to shoot from the edge of the City D and is shoved in the back by Rodri. He wants a free kick but the referee doesn’t see it that way. On the touchline, Tuchel is beyond angry. Already on a booking, he wants to watch himself here. “Tuchel is livid,” writes his uberfan Jeff Sax. “Bet he will see red before the end.”
27 min: From out left, Ake sends a speculative shot across the face of the Bayern goal and wide right. City seem to have settled a bit after a slightly tentative start.
26 min: You know what, Haaland was only inches offside before being brought down by Upamecano. Bayern and Upamecano so close to early disaster. “I’m still marvelling at the bear. Could we have more ursine related facts and figures at half time? Or maybe when the game stops as the bear catches the ball so there’s a … wait for it … a paws in play!” Bill Preston, ladies and gentleman. He’s here all week. Try whatever’s in the Jellystone Park picnic baskets.
24 min: A slight calm after multiple storms. Then suddenly Bayern break forward through Coman down the left. He rolls across for Sane, who turns down the chance to shoot and cuts back to Goretzka. A wild blooter flies over the bar. Sane should have had a pop himself.
21 min: Everyone’s expecting the free kick to be crossed into the mixer, but Sane tries to fox Ederson by flashing it straight towards the bottom-right corner. Ederson reads the danger and turns the ball around the post. Nothing comes of the resulting corner.
20 min: Coman is clipped by Ake down the right. Free kick, and a chance for Bayern to load the City box. This game is bubbling away very nicely.
19 min: Tuchel cops a booking, though, for once more telling it as he sees it.
18 min: Now it’s a huge let-off for Bayern! Haaland is sent barrelling clear down the middle. Upamecano, who had a shocker in the first leg, comes across and shoves the former Borussia Dortmund player to the floor from behind. Out comes the red card! Another shocker! But then the flag goes up for offside, and Upamecano is spared! What drama here! Please excuse the multiple use of exclamation marks!
17 min: Bayern miss the first big chance of the evening! Musiala slips a pass down the middle to release Sane. He’s clear, but knows he’s got Stones on his right shoulder. He takes a touch to the left, draws Ederson, and chips the keeper … only for the ball to bounce wide right of the gaping net. City nearly undone by their former player!
15 min: Silva dances in from the right with balletic grace. He swerves past a couple of challenges before feeding De Bruyne down the channel. De Bruyne whips in low. Sommer gathers. City bare their teeth for the first time.
13 min: It’s been hectic since the get-go. Bayern calm things down with some patient passing in their own half. That quietens the crowd, but the noise rises again as Coman is clipped by Dias only for the referee to wave play on. The home fans aren’t happy. Coman isn’t happy. But here we are.
11 min: Silva drops a shoulder with a view to tearing past Cancelo down the right touchline. Cancelo cynically checks him, and goes into the book. That’s a harsh decision, but the referee points to earlier fouls by Pavard and Goretzka, and it looks as though Cancelo is taking the hit for his team-mates.
9 min: It’s all Coman during these early stages. He makes his third sortie down the right and cuts back from the byline. Dias gets a touch on the ball to deflect away from the in-rushing Choupo-Moting and Musiala. City haven’t quite settled yet.
8 min: Coman strides down the right again. He whips in again. This time there’s too much height on the cross and Choupo-Moting can’t connect. A better delivery and City were in a world of pain there. It’s been a bright start by the hosts. Let’s face it, they need one.
7 min: De Bruyne is given a good old clatter by De Ligt. An elbow in the small of the back. A free kick, albeit not in a position that’s a problem for Bayern. That doesn’t stop Tuchel having his say from the technical area. An early edge to this game.
5 min: Dias takes a heavy touch that allows Coman to intercept. As the City defender sprints in an attempt to reclaim, he clatters Coman. But a split second earlier, Choupo-Moting was flagged offside, so there’s no dangerous free kick awarded against City. Lucky Dias.
3 min: De Ligt and Sommer faff around at the back, the keeper nearly allowing Silva to close him down. The ball pings out for a goal kick. De Ligt and Sommer gesticulate at each other. It’s not exactly Sane v Mane, so don’t expect the throwing of hands in the dressing room later on.
2 min: Pavard and Coman combine at pace down the right. The latter whips in dangerously. Choupo-Moting winds his neck back, preparing to head home from six yards, but Stones judges the situation to perfection and flicks away just in time. So close to a stunning start by Bayern!
After a three-minute wait, the ref is back, and Bayern launch the ball long. Here we go, then. “Only one thing going for Bayern, that’s Tuchel,” argues Jeff Sax. The crowd too, though, right?
Bayern wait to get the ball rolling, the referee having departed the scene, either for a comfort break or to fix his tech. As everyone hangs around, there’s one hell of a racket being made by the home fans. “Bayern! Bayern!” A simple enough call and response but wow it’s effective. Pep takes the opportunity to give his players some more tactical instruction.
The teams are out! Bayern wear their red shirts. City could sport their first-choice sky blue but plump for neon yellow instead … a kit styled on “the Manchester Worker Bee, a symbol of Mancunian character that found its way from the Manchester coat of arms to the city streets, walls, and galleries.” (A detail that may or may not be of interest to anybody who read this today.) A rare atmosphere under the floodlights at the home of the six-time champions. “I freely admit that I didn’t click the link,” begins Daniel Stauss, “but there’s no way Bayern listed Berni’s vitals in feet and inches and stones. But then, high quality on-the-fly unit conversions are what keep us coming back for more MBM fun.” We’ll be off in approximately 120,000 milliseconds.
Pep speaks to BT … “It is an honour to be here … a Champions League final away at Bayern Munich … I expect a tough game … we have to focus on the football game … [we can think about] the result of the first leg and the future, but here is a game we have to do.”
… and so does Thomas Tuchel. “We cannot get overwhelmed by the scale of what we have to do … we have to take it step by step … the first step we have is to win … we have a chance to win this game … if we win both halves separately we have a minimum of a two-goal advantage and it looks a bit more realistic … if we just look at the task to score four goals against City it might look too big, I agree, but if we take it step by step and catch some momentum, who knows? … Joao Cancelo missed the first leg against his team-mates and I think [cheeky smile] it’s always nice to have one guy playing against his former team … we hope he can have one or two shots and some good assists.”
Mascotwatch. Bayern’s beloved mascot Berni has been tooling around the Allianz Arena, hogging the early-evening limelight. According to the Bayern website, the 6ft 5in, 16-stone bear is 19 years old in a couple of weeks. Got to say, he’s looking good for it, though since that official photo was taken, he does appear to filled out a tad and lost quite a lot of hair on top. But hey, haven’t we all. To borrow Berni’s favourite phrase: we are who we are.
First leg revisited. Here’s a reminder of how things panned out last week, for the immersive pleasure of City supporters and fans of the 17 other teams in the Bundesliga.
The German champions make two changes to the starting XI named at the Etihad last week. Joao Cancelo, on loan from City, and Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting come in for Alphonso Davies and Serge Gnabry, who drop to the bench.
The English champions are in If It Ain’t Broke mode. Pep Guardiola selects all 11 players who started the first leg for City.
The teams
Bayern Munich: Sommer, Pavard, Upamecano, De Ligt, Cancelo, Kimmich, Goretzka, Sane, Musiala, Coman, Choupo-Moting.
Subs: Ulreich, Gnabry, Mane, Davies, Sarr, Blind, Muller, Gravenberch, Tel, Mazraoui, Stanisic, Ibrahomovic.
Manchester City: Ederson, Stones, Akanji, Dias, Ake, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Gundogan, Silva, Grealish, Haaland.
Subs: Ortega, Carson, Walker, Phillips, Laporte, Alvarez, Gomez, Mahrez, Perrone, Foden, Palmer, Lewis.
Referee: Clément Turpin (France)
📋 𝗧𝗘𝗔𝗠 𝗡𝗘𝗪𝗦 📋
XI | Ederson, Stones, Akanji, Dias, Ake, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Gundogan (C), Bernardo, Grealish, Haaland
SUBS | Ortega Moreno, Carson, Walker, Phillips, Laporte, Alvarez, Gomez, Mahrez, Perrone, Foden, Palmer, Lewis#ManCity pic.twitter.com/ja4yFMF6rU
— Manchester City (@ManCity) April 19, 2023
Preamble
After routing Bayern Munich 3-0 at the Etihad last week, Manchester City are within touching distance of another semi-final with Real Madrid. So close. Almost there. City, who have won their last ten matches straight, scoring 37 goals in the process, are hot favourites to make it through tonight.
Bayern will nevertheless go into this evening’s match with some hope: similar deficits and worse have in recent years been recovered by the likes of Deportivo La Coruna (v Milan 2004), Barcelona (v Paris Saint-Germain 2017) and Liverpool (v Barcelona 2019). But not by Bayern, who have only retrieved a first-leg deficit of two goals once (v Porto in 2015) and failed on the single occasion they attempted to claw back three goals (v Barcelona in the very next round that year).
Neutrals will expect a procession for Pep’s men, then … though City fans, long accustomed to the strange things that happen to their team in this competition, will surely take nothing for granted just yet. Kick off is at 9pm in Munich, 8pm Mancunian Summer Time. It’s on!
