After four weeks of inactivity, the show of the Champions League He returned with two stagings that had a single protagonist each. The first was starred by the Manchester City and his impressive victory of 3-0 over Bayern Munichwhile in the second the spotlights were totally for Inter Milan by beating Benfica 0-2, results that opened the quarterfinal round of the 2022-23 edition.
The Etihad Stadium, home of Manchester City, opened the curtain for its artists, Pep Guardiola, Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne and company, to show that their talent not only serves to create fantasy plays, but also to achieve solid victories. That’s how they thrashed Bayern and handed them their first defeat of the season in the Champions League (they had 8 wins in 8 games played).
City’s victory was built thanks to an artistic goal by Spanish midfielder Rodri, who at 16′ he hit a left-footed shot from outside the area that was nailed into the upper right corner of the Bayern goalkeeper, the Swiss Yann Sommer. The following entries fell to the 70′ and 76′ through Bernardo Silva and Erling Haalandconfirming the dominance of the English team.
“It was a close match for 60 minutes. At many times, Bayern was better than us, but after minute 65 we got the second goal and that helped us a lot”, evaluated Pep Guardiola, coach of the citizens and who also directed the Munich squad between 2013 and 2016.
Indeed, Bayern came to generate dangerous plays through the routes of Leroy Sané, Serge Gnabry and Jamal Musiala, but they were all anesthetized by the Brazilian goalkeeper Ederson. However, the most dangerous attacks were for City through Haaland, Silva and Jack Grealish, which is why the shots on goal statistic ended up more than double for the English team (9 against 4).
The German team had only lost twice in their entire history in the Champions League by a score of 3-0 and the last time had been in September 2017 against PSG (they previously lost to Barcelona in May 2015). But Guardiola’s dynamics made them fall back on this result and forced them to also win by three goals in the second leg in Munich to stay alive in the series.
“That sounds silly after a 3-0 loss, but we definitely saw today that it’s possible to match them and win. I have confidence in myself and in my team that we can achieve something in the second leg”, mentioned the Bayern captain, joshua kimmichat the end of the first leg.
If Manchester City retains the advantage in the second leg (on April 19) it will cause Bayern to be eliminated in the Champions League quarterfinals for the third consecutive year after being champions in 2020; quite the opposite for the English team, since victory would ensure their presence in the semifinals (minimum) in the last three seasons.
In the other series, Inter Milan won with goals from Nicolo Barella at 51′ and Romelu Lukaku (from a penalty) at 82′ in Portuguese territory over Benfica, who could not reflect on the scoreboard their control of possession (58% ). This was the third best victory in the history of the Italian team as a visitor counting series from the quarterfinals onwards and the first since they beat Real Madrid (also 2-0) in 1967.
“YouI had hopes before the game because the team has played well and always creates a lot of chances recently, even when we haven’t managed to win. Against Benfica, the boys played a great game against a very strong team and in a difficult stadium with a great atmosphere”, defined Simone Inzaghi, Inter coach.
The Neroazurri team is playing a Champions League quarterfinal after 12 years, which motivates players of their new generation such as Barella or the Argentine Lautaro Martínez to write their own success story against a Benfica team that had just scored in 18 games consecutive, but this time it was zero.
With these blows of authority, Manchester City and Inter Milan dream of taking another step towards European glory. The English have never been Champions League champions and Inter are looking for their fourth star, but their first since 2010. However, before losing themselves in those dreams, they must complete the work of the quarterfinals next Wednesday.
