The Bayern Munich-Real Madrid match is not over, perhaps it is just postponed, it is extended, like this installment number 27 towards the Wembley final, which will have to be decided next week at the Bernabéu after Ancelotti’s team dispatches another performance of resistance and genius under an overwhelming downpour from the Germans. Kroos found the way out of an unsolvable labyrinth and Vinicius scored a double that dissolved the incessant efforts of Tüchel’s wild plan.
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Neuer, Noussair Mazraoui, Kim Min-Jae, Eric Dier, Joshua Kimmich, Jamal Musiala, Müller (Gnabry, min. 80), Laimer, Leon Goretzka (Raphael Guerreiro, min. 45), Sane (Alphonso Davies, min. 86) and Kane
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Andriy Lunin, Nacho (Camavinga, min. 64), Rüdiger, Lucas Vázquez, Ferland Mendy, Aurelien Tchouameni, Federico Valverde, Kroos (Brahim Diaz, min. 75), Rodrygo (Joselu, min. 86), Jude Bellingham (Modric, min. 75) and Vinicius Junior
Goals 0-1 min. 23: Vinicius Junior. 1-1 min. 53: Heal. 2-1 min. 57: Kane. 2-2 min. 83: Vinicius Junior.
Referee Clement Turpin
Yellow cards Noussair Mazraoui (min. 43), Kroos (min. 64), Kim Min-Jae (min. 82) and Lucas Vázquez (min. 91)
Bayern came out like the old Bayern, scorching, and dwarfed Madrid, which was like that old Madrid of the eighties and nineties, which saw Germans fly with no formula to counter them. The floodgates of the Allianz Arena opened, combusting under the influence of Franz Beckenbauer, invoked in the typhus at the south end, and the current overwhelmed Ancelotti’s team. Not even a minute had passed and Sané had already sneaked into the area with the ancient lockpick of knocking down a wall. He tested Lunin and the Ukrainian stuck out his left foot and fended off the first attempt. But the avalanche continued, and continued. In the first 20 minutes, the goalkeeper saw another five shots taken at him.
The ball belonged to Bayern, and both they and Real lived as if they had both agreed on that principle. Musiala and Kimmich danced on the right, and Sané and Mazraoui on the left. The waves kept crashing against the pier that was trying to protect Lunin. Ancelotti’s platoon was huddled together in a narrow strip of just ten meters. So together, they sought to seal the cracks through which Musiala, Sané and Kane were sneaking in, that sometimes he dropped down to act as a passer and other times appeared in the area to finish.
Madrid watched the ball travel as if they had surrendered: they pressed an opponent, they dodged them and they watched him go. The efforts were pure melancholy. Ancelotti’s team drifted from shock to shock. Until Toni Kroos emerged. The German genius is the guy who has an umbrella when the downpour is heavy, the one who carries a map and a flashlight when night closes in an unknown forest. No one keeps the pulsations so low inside a permanently vibrating boiler. He took control and Madrid began to shake less. The ball lasted longer.
Valverde and Bellingham connected to the circuit opened by the German. Kroos displayed one of the most expansive versions of him: he directed operations not only from his usual left flank, but loomed all over the front. He moved the ball and gave instructions on where the traffic should go. Until he saw something where it seemed like there was nothing, in a deserted place behind the defense, and Vinicius pointed it out to him. Like that goal against Barça at the Bernabéu just before confinement. As then, the German saw it before, and the Brazilian launched himself towards the discovery. But now he resolves fewer doubts than then. Under the downpour of Bayern, Vinicius scored. What Tüchel feared had happened: Madrid is not there and suddenly you find yourself with a goal from them.
The blow appeased Bayern somewhat, and above all it relieved Real after the suffocating start. But Tüchel, who had set out a total charge from the first moment, was not willing to let up. After the break he retired Goretzka and introduced Guerreiro. The onslaught continued.
Kroos found another puff in a counter with Vinicius and Belllingham that the German ended with a shot cleared by Neuer. There they ran out of oxygen. Bayern reactivated their wings, pure poison with Sané and Musiala, and unleashed ten minutes of disconcerting vertigo. The first attacked from the right, dribbled in, shot and tied. Three minutes later, Musiala went down the other side, another dribble, and a penalty from Lucas Vázquez that Harry Kane converted.
They didn’t stay there. Soon, the Englishman found himself crossing the area towards Lunin. Until Rüdiger, imperial, crossed him. Real seemed melted. Ancelotti intervened by removing Nacho to place Tchouameni as center back and put Camavinga in the center. And he removed Kroos and Bellingham to introduce Modric and Brahim. Real showed signs of life again. The match was more than just a wild monologue from Bayern, who continued to push.
But Madrid, even when it seems most broken, keeps a dagger in its hem. Vinicius, who conducts himself with more and more poise in the areas that Benzema previously trod, stopped time and found Rodrygo in the center of the area. The 11th turned, Kim knocked him down and the whistle was heard. Vinicius deceived Neuer and the development of the match and became the third player in Madrid’s history to score a double against Bayern in Munich. And he extended the classic to the Bernabéu.
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