Germany mourned dashed hopes for an all-German Champions League final after Bayern Munich’s calamitous 2-1 defeat at Real Madrid, and a 4-3 loss on aggregate, with the Spanish side now going on to face Borussia Dortmund in London on 1 June.
Bild gave a minute-by-minute account of the agony before the “bitter defeat just before the end”.
“Then came the double-shock of a blunder by [the goalkeeper Manuel] Neuer and a last-minute knockout in stoppage time,” the daily said. “The dream of German Wembley 2.0 is over.” A reprise of the 2013 final there between Bayern and Dortmund had been on the cards.
Welt noted the cruel repeat of history for Bayern: “Twenty-five years after the unforgettable 2-1 defeat in the final against Manchester United, Bayern experienced another 2-1 Champions League drama.”
It said Madrid had clearly shown “more momentum and power” against the injury-plagued German side.
Thomas Tuchel said Bayern would need a while to digest the “absolute disaster” of a fateful offside call and singled out Neuer for “an error he wouldn’t make in a 100 years” yet managed to commit. “The boys are very disappointed,” he said, before adding: “We left everything on the pitch so no regrets.”
Spiegel blamed Tuchel for last-minute changes to the lineup. The coach “reached in the bag of tricks before the match and did something long frowned upon since the often failed Champions League experiments of Pep Guardiola: he reconfigured his starting XI in a major match.”
Also noted by Spiegel was Bayern’s poor track record against Madrid. “In the last four clashes between Real Madrid and Bayern, Real and its ‘white ballet’ always prevailed,” with the Spanish side now favoured to beat Dortmund.
Despite the “dreamlike ambience” at the Bernabéu, the 4,700 “valiant” Munich fans were hopelessly outnumbered, Süddeutsche Zeitung said, describing the “intimidating nature of the acoustics” under the closed stadium roof.
“Real Madrid did it again,” Süddeutsche sighed, pulling out a win in the final minutes with the help of a controversial offside call, after a “race to catch up that will go down in the history of the Champions League”.
The “goal” by the centre-back Matthijs de Ligt in the 14th minute of added time that would have allowed Bayern to pull level was disallowed after the referee “immediately whistled the very borderline offside situation”, preventing closer inspection on the video replay, Süddeutsche said.
However Welt said the call had been correct on later inspection, capping the first season since 2012 in which Bayern have failed to win a trophy and denying the outgoing Tuchel “a triumphant farewell to Munich”.
