Bernardo Silva rose above a brilliant cast to give Manchester City an unappealable victory in a duel from which the future Champions League champion could perfectly come out. The quarterfinals came with the imprint of an early final. It was won by Guardiola’s team, master on a board in which he did not give Thomas Tuchel, hero of the 2021 final but unable to give Bayern a way out of the quagmire in the fateful spring of 2023, options. the return in Munich, next week, offers little hope of redemption to the Bavarian team.
3
Ederson Moraes, Manuel Akanji, Aké, Rúben Dias, Rodrigo, Gündogan, De Bruyne (Julián Álvarez, min. 68), John Stones, Erling Braut Haaland, Grealish and Bernardo Silva
0
Sommer, Matthijs de Ligt, Alphonso Davies (Cancelo, min. 80), Dayotchanculle Upamecano, Benjamin Pavard, Jamal Musiala (Mane, min. 69), Leon Goretzka, Kingsley Coman, Joshua Kimmich, Sane and Gnabry (Müller, min. 80 )
goals 1-0 min. 27: Rodrigo. 2-0 min. 70: Bernardo Silva. 3-0 min. 76: Erling Braut Haaland.
Referee Jesus Gil Manzano
Yellow cards Bernardo Silva (min. 47), Alphonso Davies (min. 48) and Benjamin Pavard (min. 87)
Wind and rain swirl over the frozen stadium. The players bathe. They do what they can to direct the ball between the gusts of the downpour. Cornered in a corner, the Bayern fans seem more alive than all the Etihad fans put together. The English crowd attends, perplexed by a phenomenon that they do not seem to understand. The magnitude of the historical moment they are going through surpasses the fans but not the players who represent them, some of them immense. Giants like Gündogan, at a splendid level, like Stones, who executes the same as a central defender that the next minute grows as an interior player in 360 degrees, or Rodri, the team’s great helmsman, always assisted by Bernardo Silva. The little Portuguese gives a lesson in versatility. He multiplies in the axis of the plays that advance to the right with a left foot that is the hand of a goldsmith, and then he metamorphoses and goes down to harass Musiala with the determination of a forward marker.
It is the difference between De Bruyne, lethal specialist, and Silva, total player. One, each year heavier, takes care of the last pass and the mule foot shot. Spot. The other attends to all departments, even striving to cancel out Musiala, the rival’s best footballer, the only one who dares to ask for the ball in interior areas without measuring the consequences, without fear of losing it. At 20 years old, Musiala supports several tons. Because when Bayern recovers the ball, his most serious shortcomings emerge. Their names are Kimmich and Goretzka, brave to defend but shy to offer themselves in construction. As against Japan in the World Cup, every time they were pressured, they disappeared, and between the defense and the attackers a desert opened up that the lonely Musiala ran through trying the impossible mission of connecting everyone everywhere.
Musiala intervened in every crisis, like the mr wolf. But from the start he officiated as second point in the 4-4-2. It is a system made to always remain formed with six players in front of the goalkeeper, a mechanism to resist cavalry charges but hardly flexible. A model, in short, at the level of a coach who after many experiments at Dortmund discovered that when he tried to imitate Guardiola his teams were not competitive. At Chelsea, he won the Champions League by building a bunker. Bayern’s idiosyncrasies prevent it from reaching that extreme, but Tuchel showed up in Manchester more attentive to waiting for City to make a false step than anything else.
Aware that City’s weak points were on their flanks, the sparse Aké and the heavy Akanji, more central than wingers, Tuchel ordered each counterattack from his team to look for their backs. There Kimmich and Goretzka launched them, and there the dangerous Coman and the vain Sané alternately stood out. Bayern was predictable. He achieved three shots in an hour. All from outside the area. Before the break, their defense ended up so sunk that an arrival from Rodri caused the collapse. The Spaniard received a pass from Silva, sensed the arrival of Musiala, hid the ball from him, and with the meter he won he took the shot with his left foot. He was out of the area. It was a great goal. An award for the perfect point of maturity in the career of the midfielder, author of a superb match. He directed defensive transitions so well that Bayern, if they had the ball, more often than not ended up giving it away.
Bayern left beaten at interval. Stunned by the 1-0 and by three clear chances led by Haaland and saved by Sommer, in addition to a point-blank shot from Gündogan that the goalkeeper once again stopped by stretching out his foot. Luck was running out in the visiting area, even though Matthjis de Ligt did magic at each closing, in each anticipation. Less magical was Upamecano, suspiciously rigid in the enormous task of getting the ball played without support in front. The 70th minute was running when Grealish stole the ball and gave it to Haaland with his heel. The Norwegian looked for the far post and there Silva appeared, small but immense to head the second goal of the night and clarify the duel.
Forced to react without knowing how, Bayern fell apart. It was Silva again who unleashed the 3-0 action with a cross to Stones. The center-back was one of the great victims of the final lost to Chelsea in 2021. This Tuesday he gave a recital as a midfielder and also picked up the ball for Haaland to push him at the far post. His action, like Rodri’s, synthesized the splendor of two footballers who indicate the difference between the work of a good coach and an extraordinary one. The good guy, Tuchel, trains good defenders. The extraordinary also lifts them into the attack stratosphere.
You can follow EL PAÍS Sports on Facebook and Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
#Guardiola #drowns #Bayern #leaves #City #verge #Champions #League #semifinals