Manchester City – Bayern Munich: Is Pep Paving The Route To Redemption? (3-0)

Manchester City’s latest attempt to add a missing honor to their cabinet brought their manager head to head with two sources of regret. The first hour of the clash threatened to produce more pain, but this iteration of his project wields new tools that might finally end the barren run.

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The stars of the beautiful game do their work on the field, but two of football’s elite managers locked horns again in the last eight of the Champions League to write a new chapter in their war of minds.

Who could Bayern Munich trust at such short notice to lead the transition from the sacking of Julian Nagelsmann? The board elected Thomas Tuchel as the man for the job. His reign started on the right note, thanks to a 4-2 victory in Der Klassiker, and the manager is no stranger to successfully putting out fires in the middle of a campaign. His previous post at Chelsea produced Champions League glory less than half a year after his arrival and a night in Porto that must still haunt his opposite number.

That affair is the closest that Pep Guardiola has come to winning the Champions League since 2011. Manchester City’s machinery has been adapting around Erling Haaland but is keenly vying for a fifth Premier League crown in the last six years and third in a row— finding feverish form in front of goal. Yet, the outcome of the title race is not the foundation on which the management or the new talisman will receive judgment. Both strived for redemption in this fixture to continue the European conquest.

Pep selected ten of the eleven men that started on the weekend in a 4-1 defeat of Southampton. Only Riyad Mahrez lost his place, making way for Bernardo Silva as a right winger. Nathan Aké and Jack Grealish worked together on the left flank, and John Stones featured on the right edge of the defense.

Tuchel was not the only member of the Bavarian camp to return to England. The manager kept loanee João Cancelo on the bench, slotting Benjamin Pavard in on the right of the back four. However, he did trust Leroy Sané to face his former club. Leon Goretzka shored up the middle of the park with Joshua Kimmich, and Serge Gnabry filled in for the injured Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting as a central forward.

Moment of magic breaks an even duel

Pep had immediately thrown a minor modification into his plans. Manuel Akanji was the right back out of possession, and Stones joined Rúben Dias in the center of the defense. Tuchel understood this switch, noting Akanji to be the faster of the pair and better able to handle the dynamism of Bayern’s wingers. That did not scramble his defensive plans either. City stuck to the 3-2 structure at the back that has coupled up with their excellent form from the last month. Stones moved higher into midfield next to Rodri to form a double pivot, while Akanji was on the right of the base of three in possession.

Man City having a lot of fun with their flat back four in recent weeks (and vs Bayern):

- Aké + Akanji in very wide running positions.
- Pivot keeps farsided forward isolated from press.
- 2v1 created in circulation, very difficult to press and disrupt without freeing City 8s. pic.twitter.com/OEo9Rl3XmS

— Joel Parker (@Joelissimmo) April 11, 2023

Tuchel has had little time to reinvent the wheel. The manager chose to organize his men in a classic 4-2-3-1/4-2-2-2 system. A compact block with the running power of Goretzka and Kimmich in the pivot mapped out the plan to keep City at bay. The strategy mostly worked, but the hosts gradually revealed the frailty to the left of the formation. Neither Sané nor Alphonso Davies are the strongest off the ball, allowing the threats of Bernardo’s dribbling and movement from Kevin de Bruyne to generate danger.

The opening goal of the game indicated this weakness. Matthijs De Ligt tracked Ilkay Gündogan out towards the right inside channel, covering behind Davies to block a way forward from the flank for Bernardo. Goretzka also pushed out to this zone but moved too far wide. Tuchel’s verbal instructions were too late to correct the mistake. Rodri was free in the center of the block, chopped away from a retreating Jamal Musiala, and whipped a weak footed effort past Yann Sommer in the 27th minute.

"Nicht so weit Leon " ... pic.twitter.com/Qzs4gfDaNg

— Barney new again (@barney_s_) April 11, 2023

False nines fail to take up the mantelpiece

City had taken the lead, but the contest was on an even keel. The two outfits had split roughly equal shares of possession before the break. Moreover, Bayern forayed into the final third more often and created more shots than their opponents in this period of the game. Pep’s men accepted they could not always dominate the ball, defending in a 4-4-2 block. The visitors did not have a lurking threat in the box from a classic striker or the movement of Müller in their repertoire. Instead, Tuchel relied on the creativity and dynamism of Musiala and Gnabry to roam free and get in between the lines centrally.

23rd minute: offensive sequence from Bayern. Davies receives a pass from Goretzka and moves up the left flank. Sané has rotated inside onto the shoulder of Stones and the halfspace is free for his teammate Musiala to arrive. Musiala pushes the ball onto Sané to dribble at City’s defense, Gnabry runs across the backline and Coman is free on the far side. However, Aké shuts down the winger.

The Bavarian advance ground to a halt once they had arrived near City’s goal. Kingsley Coman began the game as the right winger and could not produce any output from his 1-on-1 duels with Aké. Sané was more shot hungry from the left, but his strikes frequently came from the edge of the penalty area with little chance of challenging Ederson. Crossing was out of the question in the absence of a clear target. For an outfit that seldom endures long defensive phases, City prepared well for this occasion.

Sané persevered, nearly leveling the score within five minutes of the restart. City pressed forward to obstruct Bayern’s buildup play, but de Ligt slipped a line breaking pass around the corner into the feet of Musiala. The last line was too deep to respond in time, and the left winger ran free off the back of Akanji. Sané charged into the penalty area, and Ederson smothered his shot. However, this effort had warned spectators Bayern remained in the fight, beginning the second half the better of the two sides.

City go for the kill

If the final whistle had blown at the hour mark, the margin of defeat would have better reflected the current state of affairs. Pep tried to shift the momentum back in his favor, swapping Julian Álvarez and de Bruyne in the 68th minute. A lapse of concentration would soon ease his mind. Upamecano withered under pressure from Grealish at the back. The winger backheeled the ball to Haaland, and the striker clipped a delivery to the far post, where Bernardo headed home to double the advantage.

City might have been content to manage the match with the ball until time elapsed in the past. Here, the dynamism of Álvarez with Haaland inclined Pep’s men to press on for a third goal. They scored again in the final quarter of an hour of action. The substitute found Stones from the second phase of a set-piece. His flick-on dropped to the talisman in the six yard box, and he scored his customary goal.

Upamecano’s fatal error was merely one in a chain of blunders of the back, and chaos swamped the midfield. Neither Sadio Mané, Cancelo, nor Müller could inspire a reaction. Álvarez was a pest for the defense in the right halfspace, and City embraced a spell of dynamic, full-throttle football. The three goal deficit was a bit of a relief for the guests, whose weak points suffered brutal exposure.

This Man City team is less about verticals, passing dominance, midfield control and flexibility with forwards.

The most direct Pep has been. Physically dominant, constant hard runs all over the pitch and bullying you on the press/transitional moments. pic.twitter.com/2dXWVQn79S

— Joel Parker (@Joelissimmo) April 11, 2023

Takeaways

City know all too well about tight margins in this competition. An equalizer would not have been unjust at the outset of the second half, and they were running riot by the end of the fixture. The semi-final is on the horizon, and Pep is already plotting to seal up the gaps that hurt his team ahead of the trip to Munich. So will it be their year? Randomness ensures one cannot be sure, but marginal gains, courtesy of Haaland and their defenders’ profiles, at both ends of the pitch might make the difference.

Tuchel has already lost two of his four matches in charge of Bayern, bowing out of the DFB Pokal and staring at the same fate in Europe. This record is not simply an indictment of the dismissal of Nagelsmann. It is a sign he has not immediately succeeded where his predecessor failed in the longer term at plugging holes in the squad. The absence of a penetrating offensive plan was decisive before the collapse at the back. The Bavarians were good on the night; their hosts were just superior.

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