Something in Bayern Munich’s DNA compelled them to keep going, but a 3-0 Manchester City lead from the first leg was too much for them.
Very much as expected, then, Manchester City are through to the semi-finals of the Champions League. Their 3-0 lead from the first leg of this Champions League quarter-final was a demonstration that they may be ready to finally ascend to the summit of European club football, with a semi-final now awaiting against Real Madrid, and against Bayern Munich they encountered considerable resistance but ran down the clock without too much difficulty. You may well hear the phrase “the real Champions League final” a few times over the next couple of weeks.
But Bayern Munich were at least never likely to lay down and surrender without putting up some sort of fight in the second leg – 70,000-odd screaming Bavarians were never going to let them get away with that – and they did create chances throughout a first half that was littered with low comedy.
It took less than twenty minutes for the costs of the recent fashion among referees’ assistants to flag as late as possible to become apparent, when Erling Haaland burst through the middle only for Dayot Upamecano to clatter into him and send him flying. The referee almost immediately ran over to the defender brandishing his red card, but this had to be rescinded after play was called back because Haaland had been offside.
And Haaland was involved in the other moment that defined a surprisingly effervescent first half. Upamecano, who hadn’t had much of a first leg in Manchester and who’d been involved in that near-miss with a red card earlier – he didn’t know Haaland when he approached him in the manner that he was offside – had his arms behind his back when Ilkay Gungodan took a shot at the Bayern Munich goal, but he moved them out, the ball flicked off him, and Manchester City had a penalty.
This, of course, was the cue for the commentators to adapt that slightly irritating, “oh, I just know what’s going to happen next” tone of voice (yeah, alright Nostradamus, we all know how good he is), only for Haaland to whack his penalty over the bar and high into the Bayern tifo.
By half-time the score was still goalless, and Bayern Munich’s task in overhauling Manchester City already looked somewhat hopeless. Their first half performance was excellent.
Had Manchester City only had a 1-0 lead from the first leg, we might have considered the tie to still be…
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