Manchester City blast through formidable Bayern Munich in first leg of Champions Leauge Quarter Final tie.
- Haaland scores his 45th goal of the season making history.
- Manchester City keep a cleansheet against German giants who have only gone goalless once this season.
Manchester City lined up with: Ederson, Ake, Dias, Akanji, Stones, Gundogan, Rodri, De Bruyne, Silva, Haaland, Grealish.
In the build-up to this game, critics are saying it’s the game to lookout for and that it would be a close game. However, the game seemed to go into the direction of Manchester City almost instantly.
City, who are still looking for their first Champions League in their history came up against 6 time winner, Bayern who have just come under new management Tuchel, who is a familiar face for Manchester City since 2 seasons ago, Tuchel led Chelsea FC to a 1-0 victory over City in the Champions League final.
The game started with the Premier League champions looking comfortable in possession and pressing. It seemed that the pressure of the Champions League didn’t reach the players under Guardiola.
It took 27 minutes for the Manchester City midfield maestro Rodri to break the deadlock with his first Champions League goal of his career. A beautiful goal from the edge of the D on his weak foot curling into the top left of the goal making it near impossible for Sommer to get a hand to. 1-0.
Sommer, who has recently come into this Bayern side in replacement of club legend, Neuer, really had his hands full with this city team who have scored the most goals of any club in the top flight of football this season. He did step up to the occasion with an amazing double save from De Bruyne and the follow up from Gundogan by sticking out his foot last second.
The first half ends 1-0 to the home side with City looking in complete control and Bayern hoping to fire back with their firepower in the second half.
The second half begins with back-and-forth pressure from both sides. However, in the 68th minute, Kevin De Bruyne, one of Manchester City’s most influential players went down injured and with no precautions taken from Guardiola, he replaced him with World Cup winner Alvarez.
That seemed to not slow down the pressure from the blues at all, since only 2 minutes after the substitution, Bernardo Silva had a free header from the cross of Erling Haaland and put it into the top left of the goal putting City 2-0 up with 20 minutes to go.
6 minutes later, the inevitable happened.
The man on fire, Erling Haaland, after already getting an assist this game got his goal with a header across goal from John Stones he poked it into the net to make the Mancunians go 3-0 up against the German giants.
That seemed to be the last action of the game that changed anything since until the final whistle, City stayed composed and kept a clean sheet against the Bundesliga champions.
The reverse game is on Wednesday 19th of April at the Alianz Arena in Germany with City looking to keep their 3-0 lead and get through the quarter finals onto either Real Madrid or Chelsea FC.