Bayern bend under Paris

Bayern bend under Paris

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Bayern Munich in the quarter-final first leg of the Champions League play-offs lost at home to PSG with a score of 2:3.

The pre-match layouts of the teams spoke of a small advantage of the guests due to the injury of Robert Lewandowski, Corentin Tolisso and Serge Gnabry. PSG got used to the loss of Verratti, Kurzawa and Florenzi, so the main problem was the absence of Paredes due to the bust of yellow cards. But that didn't really affect the game.

Initially, it was unclear who will come out on the cutting edge at Bayern. There was a thought that Thomas Muller would appear there, but that would immediately exclude two positions. No one is looking for zones better than Muller, perhaps in the world, and he himself has long been not considered a reference forward. Therefore, the coach of the owners Hans-Dieter Flick put Choupo-Moting in the attack.

PSG already in the third minute once again poked their nose into the main problem of Bayern - a high line of defense, consisting of slow defenders. This time Alaba had to balance Sule's lack of speed, but it was on the counterattack that Kylian Mbappe opened the score after Neymar outplayed the German.

After that, Bayern launched a massive offensive, as away goals still play an important role in the Champions League playoffs and conceded from Marquinhos. Again, the defense did not work out after the free kick and the Brazilian, having come out on a rendezvous with Neuer, outplayed the German.

You can blame Neuer as much as you like for the first conceded goal, but he was not to blame for the overall defeat. The defense of Rekordmaster tried to do this. This was confirmed by the replacement of Leon Goretzka with Alfonso Davies, when Alaba moved up to the position of the defensive midfielder, and then Flick replaced Sule with Boateng. However, this happened after the goal of Choupo-Moting. This goal, it seems to me, confused the cards more for the coach of Bayern than for PSG, because Flick trusted him.

After the break, the hosts came out to play as if they had Robert Lewandowski in their squad. Coman and Sane searched for the Pole's head with passes, but in the end they found only the Cameroonian who did not reach the ball and took the wrong position. Only the free kick from Kimmich helped Bayern to level the score when he crossed on Thomas Muller. By the way, the German in the second half is often on the same line with Choupo-Moting and helped his negligent partner.

But after eight minutes Mbappe on a counterattack proved that replacing Sule with Boateng was pointless. The Frenchman rocked the German like Messi in the good old days and sent the ball into the near corner between his legs, catching Neuer in the opposite direction. Grandmaster realization from Kylian, who again scores a brace against one of the best teams in the world.

Bayern tried to arrange an attack on the goal of Keylor Navas. But the Costa Rican looked flawless in the battle. He made ten saves per match. And if the statistics says 31-6 for shots, don't be mistaken. PSG played on the result from the start of the match and won. The Parisians under the managemenr of Pochettino showed amazing counter-attacking football. Yes, having such performers as Neymar and Mbappe at the fore, seems easy. But all other things being equal, PSG have lost before in the Champions League. For me, this is a benchmark counter-attack game, which is akin to the model of Inter in the era of Jose Mourinho, and we believe that the guests deservedly won, and Bayern was held hostage by Robert Lewandowski, who missed this encounter.