Met videoMatthijs de Ligt needs a miracle after a disaster evening with Bayern Munich in Manchester next Wednesday to win his first Champions League cup this season. The Manchester City of Pep Guardiola and Nathan Aké took full advantage of the German fumbling in the first quarterfinal: 3-0.
The two title candidates did not disappoint in the first part of the biggest poster of the quarter-finals in the royal class. The game swung back and forth at a breakneck pace, with Manchester City initially having the upper hand, but Bayern Munich thought to take the lead when the young dribbling king was able to swing freely, were it not for Ruben Dias’s dedication and success in the court off the slider.
It became even more painful for Musiala when the English champion then broke out. Bayern was once out of position and immediately had to pay for it with a deficit. The top talent arrived too late for Rodri, allowing the Spanish midfielder to simply turn away and see the ball beautifully painted into the top left corner with his left leg.
Thomas Tuchel, who kept City and Pep Guardiola away from the final victory two years ago as Chelsea coach in the final, already saw that opening goal coming. ‘Nicht so weit Leon’ (not so wide Leon) the coach yelled at Goretzka, who failed to keep the lanes closed to the middle.
At the end of last month, Bayern suddenly conjured Tuchel out of the top hat when Julian Nagelsmann was evicted. After the coaching change, the record champion immediately took the lead in the Bundesliga, but it also fell directly in the DFB-Pokal. Now former Bayern coach Guardiola threatens the next elimination, in a gigantic squatter in which the loaned João Cancelo (bench) and Leroy Sané on the other side also met their previous club.
The latter was a few close to an opening goal immediately after the break. Once again City goalkeeper Ederson saved, first with more luck than wisdom and then with a nice reflex. De Ligt continued to hunt for the equalizer with his team. The mandekker in top form, last weekend with a world goal against Freiburg, announced in advance that after his star role against Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé in the eighth finals, he was now looking forward to meeting another gun, Erling Haaland.
He did that flawlessly for seventy minutes, although De Ligt sprained his ankle shortly before the break. Nathan Aké, who played well for City, among others, took care of his upset compatriot. De Ligt scrambled to continue to dominate, especially in the air, and to keep the Norwegian from his eleventh goal in his seventh CL game and City from potentially decisive goals.
The only problem was that De Ligt had the biggest source of unrest at Bayern alongside him. Dayot Upamecano had already escaped a few times with his fumbling, when he let himself steal the ball again twenty minutes before the end. It ended up with Haaland, whose good cross was headed in against the grain and high by star Bernardo Silva.
It didn’t stop there, because seven minutes later De Ligt handed over direct opponent Haaland after a header duel to a teammate, only to see him push in his eleventh Champions League goal of this season at the far post at the far post on a pass from John Stones . The 22-year-old Norwegian lifted his tally in the Champions League to 34 goals in 26 appearances. In the previous round, he even scored five times against RB Leipzig, while Guardiola took him off after 63 minutes.
With Haaland’s 3-0, there was hardly any prospect of a semi-final ticket and the final victory for De Ligt, who also made the switch to Bavaria before that. While the clash of the giants was still quite equal for an hour, the wandering Bayern almost relegated next Wednesday’s return in the last half hour to a formality.
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