Oh, just one more thing. Manchester City’s last nine results in all competitions are: 4-1, 3-0, 2-0, 1-0, 7-0, 6-0, 4-1, 4-1, 3-0.
Goals for: 34. Goals against: 3.
Arsenal, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Sheffield United, whoever else might get in their way: godspeed.
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City have had some heartbreaking and/or inexplicable defeats in this competition, so they won’t be counting any semi-final chickens, but to the neutral this tie looks over. Thanks for your company and emails – I’ll leave you with David Hytner’s match report from the Etihad. Goodnight!
“This City side reminds me of Dundee United’s Scottish Premier League winners of 1982-83,” says Simon McMahon. “With Haaland as Davie Dodds. No higher compliment can be paid.”
“Might have been a mid-Sommer night’s dream for the Bayern goalkeeper were it not for the nightmarish defending of his team mates,” says Colum Fordham. “Bayern have been well and truly outclassed. Nice, from an England perspective, to see Grealish and Stones playing so well.”
It feels like Stones has been really good – perhaps even world-class, though I still don’t really know what that means – for a while now. In fact, I feel a bit guilty about all those old Fivers celebrating his rococo defending.
It was tight for most of the game, with two quality teams separated by Rodri’s extravagant curler, but City overwhelmed Bayern in the final quarter. Erling Haaland made the second for Bernardo Silva and scored the third himself.
That really was a terrific performance from City, and not just in attack: Ruben Dias was immense, the rest of the back four not far behind, and Ederson made a big save to deny Leroy Sane at 1-0. City only had 46 per cent of the possession, in fact.
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Full time: Man City 3-0 Bayern
Manchester City have multiple toes in the semi-final after a stirring win over Bayern Munich.
90+2 min Here’s the big man’s 948th goal of the season.
45TH GOAL OF THE SEASON 🤪
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 11, 2023
Erling Haaland puts one foot in the #UCL semi-finals for Man City 🙌 pic.twitter.com/pMeD8Poo9t
90+1 min Cancelo is being booed every time he touches the ball. Meanwhile, Coman’s cross is headed away well by Stones at the far post.
90 min Three minutes of added time. Bayern surely need a goal now to have any chance next week.
90 min “Wow, how quickly a situation can change!” says Jamie O’Sullivan. “De Bruyne going down looked like it could be a bad injury for a moment (echoes of Michael Owen in 2006). But how well has it worked out for them – Bayern are absolutely flummoxed by that wall of four attackers City now have in front of them every time Sommer and Upamecano get the ball. This is as good as I’ve ever seen City look, and it’s bloody ominous.”
I wouldn’t necessarily go that far, but they have been seriously good in the past 20 minutes.
89 min Grealish, using Pavard as a screen, curls over from the edge of the area.
88 min Pavard is booked for a late tackle on Grealish, which leads to a brief row between Kimmich and Grealish. Not sure why: it was a blatant yellow card.
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87 min: Great save by Sommer! Alvarez’s outswnging corner is met by Rodri, 12 yards out, and his powerful header is pushed over two-handed by the flying Rodri. That’s a very good save, high to his left.
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86 min Upamecano overhits a backpass so badly that it goes behind for a corner. Bayern have been a shambles in defence.
85 min Remember when John Stones was a banter footballer? It feels a long time ago. Our baby is all growns up now, a world-class defender/occasional midfielder.
84 min Kimmich, in the centre circle, clips a really dangerous straight pass towards Sane. For a second it looks like Sane is through on goal, but Stones does superbly to get between him and the ball and usher it through to Ederson.
83 min “Bet Guardiola was pleased Norway weren’t at the World Cup finals!” writes Stephen Bradfield.
82 min Alvarez, who is a disgustingly good player to have in reserve, receives a pass from Grealish and whips a marvellous curling shot towards goal from 25 yards. It beats Sommer, diving to his right, and goes this far wide.
80 min: Double substitution for Bayern Joao Cancelo and Thomas Muller replace Serge Gnabry and Alphonso Davies. There are loud boos, and I don’t think they’re for Thomas Muller. I’ve never heard a loan player get a reception like that.
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80 min Erling Haaland, mes que un goalscoring freak.
Bernardo Silva's bullet header puts Man City in firm control against Bayern Munich 💥#UCL pic.twitter.com/6LytZCUEWU
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 11, 2023
79 min Bayern have fallen apart. Akanji surges down the right and lifts a cross shot that is pushed away by the diving Sommer.
78 min Gnabry moves dangerously into the area and tries to twist past Dias, who makes a beautifully judged tackle. He’s been majestic tonight.
It came from a corner on the right, with the ball only half cleared by Bayern. Alvarez swung a deep, left-footed cross that was headed superbly back across goal by Stones and volleyed expertly into the net by Haaland. City are flying!
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GOAL! Man City 3-0 Bayern (Haaland 77)
Erling Haaland may have put City in the semi-finals – already!
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75 min After another game of pinball in the Bayern area, Alvarez slides a low shot across goal that is crucially pushed out by the sprawling Sommer, with Davies completing the clearancee Bayern were certain a defender, Pavard I think, was fouled by Gundogan and almost stopped playing.
73 min Alvarez’s bouncing cross is missed by both Haaland and Stones in the middle. Bayern are hanging on here.
72 min The nervous Upamecano gives the ball away again, this time to Haaland on the edge of the area, but gets away with it thanks to a couple of desperate challenges.
Grealish, a defensive revelation these days, robbed Upamecano 25 yards from goal and then released Haaland on the left side of the area with a lovely backheel. Haaland shaped to shoot but then stood up a beautiful cross towards the unmarked Bernardo at the far post. He ran onto the ball and powered a header through Sommer. That’s a fine goal!
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GOAL! Man City 2-0 Bayern (Bernardo 70)
Pep Guardiola didn’t pick Bernardo Silva ahead of Riyad Mahrez for his ability to score headers, but he’ll take this all night!
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70 min: Bayern substitution Sadio Mane replaces Jamal Musiala.
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69 min Coman’s cross from the right is just too high for the leaping Pavard, who can only help it on and wide of the far post.
68 min: City substitution Julian Alvarez replaces Kevin De Bruyne, who walks straight past Pep Guardiola with a face like thunder. I’m not sure whether that’s because he knows he’s got a problem or whether he’s in a huff at being taken off. He was taken off in Madrid last year as well.
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68 min Would this be a better result for City or Bayern? I can’t decide.
67 min De Bruyne goes down a second time, again feeling his right ankle, though he’s on his feet pretty quickly.
66 min Sane’s corner is headed away at the near post by De Bruyne.
66 min Kimmich’s very deep corner is punched behind for another by Ederson, with De Ligt arriving round the back.
65 min De Bruyne is back on. That didn’t look great on the replay, a possible ligament injury, but he seems okay.
64 min De Bruyne does well to keep a ball in play, but his leg gets caught as he slips off the field. He’s in a lot of pain. Rodri puts the ball out so he can receive treatment – but as he was off the field, Bayern are okay to play on.
64 min Kimmich’s long-range drive is blocked by Dias.
63 min “City quickly finding out Yann Sommer’s Achilles heel: Yann Sommer,” says Justin Madson. “For whatever reason Bayern’s defence plays as if it’s still Manuel Neuer in goal. I have nothing but respect for Yann Sommer but playing out from the back does not suit him. Upemecano needs to give him a break.”
62 min And now it’s City who are having a really good spell. The second half has been tremendously entertaining, and the first didn’t exactly stink the competition out either.
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60 min Bernardo somehow nicks the ball off Davies in the Bayern area, a marvellous bit of persistence near the byline. Then he pokes the ball back to Stones, whose shot flies across the area and well wide.
59 min “Leroy Sane’s bullet corners are a real throwback to those Andy Hinchcliffe near-post howitzers from 25 years ago,” says Pádraig McAuliffe. “Incredibly hard to defend.”
That’s a good comparison, and it’s a shame Bayern don’t have the modern-day Duncan Ferguson in their team. He’ll be in action for Reading against Burnley on Saturday.
57 min: Another chance for City! De Bruyne takes the corner short, gets it back and then lifts a ball into Dias, ten yards out. He chests it down and flicks a volley that is pushed over by the stretching Sommer. Good save.
Two things on that: Dias looked slightly offside, and he was also being pulled back by Goretzka as he hit the volley.
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57 min A nice backheel from Grealish finds the overlapping Ake, who spanks a first-time drive that is pushed round the near post by Sommer. This is wonderful stuff.
55 min: Vital block by Ake! Sane bullets a right-wing corner to the far post, where De Light loses Bernardo and thumps a header that is blocked unwittingly by his international teammate Ake. I think that was going on. Ake knew the square root of bugger all about it, but it hit his head and looped across the area. The follow up was headed away by Dias, though I suspect Ederson would have saved that. Not so sure about the first one.
54 min Pavard’s cross deflects off Grealish and loops onto the roof of the net with Ederson scrambling. Bayern have been terrific since half-time.
53 min Another whipped long-range shot from Sane is punched away by Ederson, falling to his right. That was a relatively comfortable save – better than his first just after half-time but not in the same class as the second.
52 min “I was disappointed by a certain Bayern manager’s sacking because I wanted to see him against Pep,” says Yash Gupta. “With all due respect to Tuchel, he had Pep’s number in the last month of the 2021 season but since then he has underwhelmed every single time, and the same will happen again. In an alternate reality Julian Nagelsmann wears pajamas in the Manchester rain and sets the world alight.”
Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter.
50 min: Great block by Kimmich! Another minor farce in the Bayern area, sparked by a misunderstanding between Sommer and Upamecano. Eventually Sommer, under pressure from Gundogan, gives the ball straight to Haaland on the edge of the area. Haaland returns it with interest and Kimmich throws himself in front of the shot to make a superb block.
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49 min Davies is booked for a foul on De Bruyne.
49 min: Brilliant save by Ederson! That was a sensational bit of goalkeeping. Musiala had space to turn on the halfway line and thread a pass between Stones and Akanji for Sane. He charged into the area and hammered a low drive across goal that was brilliantly stopped by Ederson, low to his left, and Ake desperately completed the clearance.
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47 min Bernardo is booked for a cynical foul on Musiala. He caught him down the back of the achilles, in fact, but Musiala didn’t make anything of it.
46 min Ederson is called into action after 43 seconds. Sane pings a sweet long-range strike that wobbles awkwardly and is punched away by Ederson. Actually, replays show he didn’t punch it – he made an unorthodox save his left bicep.
46 min Peep peep! City get the second half under way. We saw a few replays of Rodri’s goal at half-time; it wasn’t quite in the top corner, as I thought at the time, though it was still a lovely strike and such a memorable moment.
Half-time reading
Tonight’s game is admirable in its own way, but we all know there’s a cigar with Carlo’s name on it on the night of 10 June.
Half time: Man City 1-0 Bayern
Peep peep! City lead through a spectacular left-footed curler from Rodri. They created the clearer chances in an intense first half at a waterlogged, sweltering Etihad, and Ilkay Gundogan would have made it 2-0 but for an outrageous reaction save by Yann Sommer.
Mind you, it took a Ruben Dias block to stop Jamal Musiala putting Bayern ahead just before Rodri’s goal, so there’s that as well.
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45+2 min: Just wide from Sane! Oof, that was close. Out of mothing, Sane cut inside from the right and throttled a 25-yard drive that wobbled a couple of yards wide of the far post with Ederson scrambling to his right.
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45+2 min Pavard makes a vital lunging tackle on De Bruyne in the area.
45+1 min Rodri, don’t shoot!
RODRI'S FIRST-EVER #UCL GOAL 🤯
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 11, 2023
Unreal strike from the Man City midfielder 🚀 pic.twitter.com/u7F8p3uQna
45+1 min Two minutes of added time.
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45 min “The only two soccer players I’ve ever met in the flesh,” begins Tony Hughes, “were a) Pasquale Bruno in Edinburgh during his stint with Hearts in the 1990s and b) Jaap Stam in a COVID-deserted downtown Cincinnati, in that honeymoon period just after he signed on as FC Cincinnati coach but before he lost almost every game. I approached neither.”
Is Pasquale Bruno the fella who completely lost it when he was sent off for Torino against Juventus in 1991?
Edit: oh yes it was.
44 min Interestingly, Bayern have had 53 per cent of the possession so far. But City have carried the greater threat.
41 min De Ligt is now down holding his left ankle, which is an unorthodox reaction to being denied a goalscoring opportunity. Actually, his ankle twisted quite nastily as he was challenged by Bernardo Silva.
41 min Kimmich’s deep, inswinging corner is headed away well by Ake, with De Ligt arriving just behind him.
40 min Kimmich plays a good ball to release Pavard, but his cross is overhit. Bayern retrieve possession and Coman wins a corner off Akanji.
39 min “You know what Rob,” says Edan Tal. “I would say that’s the best save I have ever seen.”
You’ve just seriously disrespected the Bing Gregory Coupet.
37 min De Bruyne beats Pavard with a lovely dummy. Pavard recovers to foul De Bruyne, and is maybe a bit fortunate not to be booked.
35 min Sommer misses the resulting corner, with Haaland unable to turn the ball on target from a very tight angle beyond the far post. Then Bayern break and Kimmich has a low shot blocked by… Grealish.
I can’t keep up with this.
34 min: Amazing save from Sommer! This is glorious drama. De Bruyne’s deflected cross from the right bounces so awkwardly that Upamecano runs straight past the ball at trhe near post. Sommer charges from his line to take it off Grealish’s head, but he can only punch it straight to Gundogan, following up 10 yards out.
Gundogan hits a first-time volley towards goal, but Sommer – by now on the ground and ostensibly out of the game – sticks out his left leg to make a remarkable reaction save.
Yann Sommer with outrageous reactions to deny İlkay Gündoğan 😳#UCL pic.twitter.com/YNykjeVf9W
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 11, 2023
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33 min We talk all the time about fine margins and details, and the 90 seconds before the City goal was another example. Jamal Musiala would have given Bayern the lead but for an outstanding block from Ruben Dias. Moments later, Musiala was guilty of a slightly woolly challenge, but one that would have gone unpunished 49 times out of 50. This was the 50th.
33 min “Given there was a talk about tactical overthoughts, selling players at their peak or after it, former Dutch defenders that played for Man United and full-backs, I decided to melt it all into one,” says Admir Pajic. “One of the craziest tactical ideas that I can recall of was Roberto Mancini playing Jaap Stam as marauding RB at Lazio. The best part is, Stam didn’t look out of the place at all. You can only imagine how the opposite number felt when he saw the Dutch giant marauding down his side.”
Or just marauding towards you full stop.
32 min De Bruyne’s pass towards Gundogan deflects towards Grealish on the left side of the area. The angle is really tight, so now he tries to find Gundogan with a cut back. Upamecano gets in front to clear.
31 min Coman has switched wings with Sane. That goal has energised City, who are hunting Bayern with even greater aggression than before.
28 min Tuchel was fuming after the goal, I think with Musiala’s slightly half-arsed challenge on Rodri. Even so, it was a monstrous finish.
I’m not sure even Rodri can believe this. He was found by a square pass Bernardo 25 yards from goal, with Musiala on his shoulder. Rodri turned away from him and then, with nothing else on, shaped a glorious left-footed curler that nestled in the far top corner. Pick that out.
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GOAL! Man City 1-0 Bayern (Rodri 27)
Rodri scores a screamer to put City ahead – with his left foot!
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26 min: Great defending by Dias! Kimmich robs De Bruyne high up the field and finds Sane. He evades Akanji, gets to the byline and cuts the ball back to Musiala, unmarked on the edge of the area. Musiala takes a touch and rifles a low shot that is blocked by the outstretched right leg of Dias. I’m pretty sure that was going in because Ederson was wrong-footed.
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25 min Bayern keep the ball for a while in City’s third. Eventually Kimmich clips an angled pass towards Pavard, who is well tracked by Grealish and can only slice the ball behind for a goalkick.
25 min More from John Ainsworth on the Manchester weather (see 15 min). “It sounds like,” begins John, “you have one of those southern TVs.”
24 min Coman tries to run Ake in the area, but Ake times his challenge superbly.
22 min: Chance for Haaland! Lovely play by City. They win the ball high up the field, with Gundogan threading a good, straight pass into Grealish on the edge of the area. He flicks it back outside to the unmarked Haaland, who sidefoots tamely straight at Sommer from the edge of the area. He had time to take a touch there.
21 min “At the risk of invoking Silvio Dante invoking Al Pacino, this is the sort of CL game that pulls you back in isn’t it?” says David Hopkins. “Yes it’s basically a lopsided magic money tree for the top clubs, but it’s also two monster teams going at it like billy-o!”
Yeah, nicely put. Pretty much everything about modern football is soul-crushing, apart from the actual football. And by that I don’t mean VAR or diving or timewasting, I mean the actual football. You know, the bit that fits my half-arsed narrative!
20 min A brilliant cross from De Bruyne is turned behind by Kimmich, stretching around his international teammate Gundogan in the six-yard box. That was superb defending.
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19 min I’d say City have been slightly the better team so far, though there is very little in it. Both teams realise they’re in this for the long haul.
17 min Sane has a shot blocked by Akanji after some patient possession from Bayern.
15 min “It’s not cold at all in Manchester,” says John Ainsworth. “It is raining, but the defining characteristic is it is very blowy.”
It looks really, really cold on my television, and it’s a smart TV and everything,
14 min: High farce (almost)! Sommer almost concedes a shambolic goal. He took too long over a backpass, right on his goalline, and before he knew it Haaland was galumphing towards him with malevolent intent. Sommer’s clearance brushed the challenging Haaland, two yards from goal, but happily for Bayern it flew across the area rather than into the net.
13 min Actually, ‘cagey’ is the wrong word. Maybe ‘considered’ is better.
12 min As well as the rain, there’s powerful whiff of mutual respect at the Etihad. The last few minutes have been pretty cagey.
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11 min After a decent build-up from Bayern, Davies, 20 yards out, drags a daisy cutter well wide of the far post.
10 min It’s pelting down in Manchester.
8 min Bernardo slips Davies neatly on the right, then turns and plays the ball back to De Bruyne. He flips a trademark cross that is headed over from about eight yards by Gundogan. It’s a chance, though not an easy one as the ball was slightly too high.
7 min A quiet spell in the game. These are the revised line-ups, and it’s the last I’ll say on the subject.
Manchester City (4-2-1-3ish) Ederson; Akanji, Stokes, Ruben Dias, Ake; Gundogan, Rodri; De Bruyne; Bernardo, Haaland, Grealish.
Bayern Munich (4-2-1-3ish) Sommer; Pavard, Upamecano, De Ligt, Davies; Kimmich, Goretzka; Musiala; Coman, Gnabry, Sane.
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5 min In tactical terms this is football for grown-ups, way beyond the comprehension of a mince-thick hack, so I’m going to stick to the action for now. It’s still pretty frantic, and Haaland has just smashed over from an absurd angle on the left side of the area. A 0.00001 xG for most people, a 1.00000 for him.
4 min “Is it only me,” says Samuel Campbell, “that had no idea Daley Blind was at Bayern?”
Well I can’t speak for the other 7.888 billion people who are reading this on the planet, but I was vaguely aware of it, yeah.
3 min It’s been a frantic start, with one promising attack apiece. Stones is definitely playing at centre-back when City don’t have the ball.
1 min Bayern’s wide players aren’t inverted: Sane is on the left, Coman the right. And as I type, Stones has just sauntered into midfield, so it looks like a variation on City’s 3-2-2-3 formation. Tell you what, trying to work out a Pep Guardiola formation isn’t good for my blood pressure.
First half kick-off!
1 min Peep peep! Bayern get the game under way, and there’s a slight surprise in the City team – Stones is at centre-back with Akanji at right-back.
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The players line up for the pre-match boos, which are occasionally drowned out by the Champions League anthem. It’s a chilly night in Manchester, and this could be immense.
“I’m confused why Jeff thinks it’s the wrong team for Bayern,” says Justin Madson. “Tuchel is ensuring that he has enough speed to deal with City’s pace. As to the bench: Mane, while being a great player, really hasn’t had an opportunity to settle into the team this season after missing most of it due to surgery, and certainly wouldn’t start over Sane or Gnabry at this point in the season. Muller is still fantastic, but his pace has never been his strong suit and has decreased if anything, which won’t do against City. Cancelo has been a wild card in terms of appearances because Pavard has put in such consistent good play that it’s hard to sit him. I feel it’s an excellent selection from Tuchel.”
On that note, and I know there are mitigating circumstances with Mane, it’s interesting how often top-class players leave a Jurgen Klopp team and never reach the same heights again. And when I say ‘interesting’, I mean just that. It’s not a euphemism, I’m not implying they’re all on the juice. It might be that, like Arsene Wenger in his imperial phase, Klopp has an instinct for when to let players go.
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“For those who don’t watch the Bundesliga much,” begins Roger Wallace, “can I just say that Bayern’s now standard Goretzka/Kimmich/Musiala formation in midfield is horrifyingly good and I’d even venture to say better than anything City can offer?”
I’m really looking forward to watching Musiala, who looks like a potential Ballon d’Or botherer of the future.
And so does Thomas Tuchel
If you have a team at this kind of level, and are playing a team at this level in a quarter-final, you have to take tough decisions. It’s important that everybody accepts it. We will start with XI but we will not finish with the same XI, that’s for sure, so we need everybody and we need quality [from the bench].
Joao [Cancelo] and Sadio [Mane] were options. We took some last-minute decisions this afternoon. This is how it is. They deserved to start but I can only pick XI. I think they [Cancelo and Mane] will finish the game for us.
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Pep Guardiola speaks
It’s how you perform right now, today. You can be 20 points behind in the league and win the Champions League or be 20 points clear in the league and not win the Champions League. [Coincidentally, City finished 19 points clear of Chelsea in 2020-21.]
Both [Bernardo and Riyad Mahrez] are fantastic. I decided on Bernardo for intuition, for different things, you know? We have to control an important player like [Alphonso] Davies and he is smart.
“Tuchel has been stricken with the Pep virus,” says Jeff Sax. “That’s a bad starting XI.”
Hang on, I thought Tuchel was Peptonite and now you’re telling me he’s got the Pep virus!
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The past is a foreign country. OR IS IT?
“Blimey Rob,” says Duncan Edwards. “Is this the rare occasion when a team has more talent on the bench than City, or is it that Tuchel has picked the wrong starting XI?”
I quite like that team, though the exclusion of Cancelo surprised me a bit. He was also going to pick Goretzka, and I really like the dynamism of the front four.
The players on a yellow card are… Manuel Akanki, Joshua Kimmich and Noussair Mazraoui.
This is a cracking interview with Dayot Upamecano, who returns from suspension for a date with Erling Haaland.
John Stones has spent a lot of time in midfield in recent weeks. The BT Sport panel – Rio Ferdinand, Joleon Lescott and Owen Hargreaves – think he might be a bit more cautious tonight, given Bayern’s attacking threat.
It would be so interesting to be a fly on the wall when Pep talks to him about how to play this new RBCM position against Bayern – when to go, when to stay, when to pray Manuel Akanji is quick enough to deal with Kingsley Coman.
"He's comfortable in that central midfield area."@rioferdy5, @JoleonLescott and Owen Hargreaves discuss John Stones' role at right-back and his ability to move into different positions 📋#UCL pic.twitter.com/sKs8QCMzRv
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 11, 2023
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Benfica v Internazionale is the night’s other Champions League game. You can follow that one with the great Tim de Lisle.
Team news: Bernardo starts, Cancelo on the bench
Nothing too funky from Pep Guardiola, who has made one change from the team that walloped Southampton on Saturday: Bernardo Silva replaces Riyad Mahrez.
City’s Joao Cancelo starts on the bench for Bayern, one of three intriguing changes made by Thomas Tuchel from the weekend win over Freiburg. Sadio Mane and Thomas Muller are also omitted, with Dayot Upamecano (who was suspended at the weekend), Leon Goretzka and Kingsley Coman coming into the team.
Manchester City (possible 4-1-2-3) Ederson; Stones, Akanji, Ruben Dias, Ake; Rodri; De Bruyne, Gundogan; Bernardo, Haaland, Grealish.
Substitutes: Ortega, Carson, Walker, Phillips, Laporte, Alvarez, Sergio Gomez, Mahrez, Perrone, Palmer, Lewis.
Bayern Munich (possible 4-2-1-3) Sommer; Pavard, De Ligt, Upamecano, Davies; Goretzka, Kimmich; Musiala; Sane, Gnabry, Coman.
Substitutes: Ulreich, Schenk, Mane, Sarr, Joao Cancelo, Blind, Muller, Gravenbach, Tel, Mazraoui, Stanisic.
Referee Jesus Gil Manzano (Spain).
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to live, minute-by-minute coverage of Manchester City v Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-final. This is the 46th game of City’s season, yet in some ways it’s the first. We all know how desperate they are to win the Champions League for the first time, and Pep Guardiola for the third in his career.
Guardiola, quite rightly, takes enormous pride in City’s domestic consistency – four titles in five years, five EFL or FA Cups – but he knows that, without a Champions League, his team at City isn’t complete. Isn’t nearly close to being in the same vicinity as complete.
With a lack of respect to RB Leipzig and whoever City played in the group stage, this is where the tournament really starts for Guardiola: a heavyweight clash between the two teams who are joint top of the Uefa club coefficient rankings. And if the phrase ‘joint top of the Uefa club coefficient rankings’ doesn’t stir the loins, then I don’t know what will.
For all their consistency in Europe, both City and Bayern have an unfulfilling domestic:Champions l/League ratio. Bayern won the competition in 2020, and utterly awesome they were too, but that’s the only time they’ve reached the final since they beat Dortmund at Wembley in 2013.
City’s tale of woe we know: group stage, group stage, R16, R16, SF, R16, QF, QF, QF, F, SF. (Pep campaigns are in italics.) At times they have been unfortunate, at others Pep has thought himself out of contention. If they do eventually win it – and most great teams do, sometimes when we think the moment has passed – they’ll have a helluva coming-of-age story to tell.
The big picture is everything, but there are also plenty of intriguing details. Joao Cancelo is likely to start for Bayern against his parent club; Bayern have just appointed Thomas Tuchel, who shattered City’s dreams in the final two years ago; and after years of finishing second at Dortmund, Erling Haaland has the chance to get one over on Bayern. And then there’s Pep’s quest to win a third Champions League debut and satisfy Twitter’s finest that he is not a hairless charlatan who got lucky with Lionel Messi.
The second leg is in Munich a week tomorrow, with the winners to play Real Madrid or Chelsea in the semi-finals. May football be the winner. That and whoever you support.
Kick off 8pm in Manchester, 9pm in Munich.
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