MADRID — Sometimes that famous Bernabéu magic isn’t quite enough.
Real Madrid have had so many great UEFA Champions League nights at this stadium, beating often superior teams in frequently inexplicable circumstances. But in Tuesday’s 1-2 defeat to Bayern Munich, reality caught up with them, the comeback just out of reach.
Playing against a talented, confident, fluid Bayern team, Madrid spent the first hour looking quite ordinary. The visitors were superior, more than the game’s scoreline suggested. But as the second half went on, the dynamic slowly but surely changed. Madrid began to create a steady stream of chances, Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé getting ever closer.
When Mbappé did, eventually, pull a goal back in the 74th minute, the Bernabéu crowd, cautiously hopeful, found their voices, as Madrid pushed for more. But the equaliser never materialised, thanks largely to Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer and his outstanding nine saves.
By the final whistle, both teams had had 20 shots, creating similar numbers of chances (15-14 in Madrid’s favour, with three of Madrid’s classed by Opta as ‘big chances’ compared to Bayern’s two), although Bayern’s xG (expected goals) of 2.99 comfortably outstripped Madrid’s 1.97.
A one-goal margin means the tie is open as the teams head to Munich for next week’s return leg. “We’re alive,” coach Álvaro Arbeloa repeated several times, post-match.
“We could have scored more,” Real Madrid goalkeeper Andriy Lunin said afterwards. “The team reacted well. Neuer was the MVP.” Antonio Rüdiger agreed: “The best player was Neuer.”
Still, the feeling for much of this game was that Arbeloa’s team had found its level, its few strengths, and more weaknesses, exposed in the Champions League spotlight, against elite opposition.
Vincent Kompany’s Bayern dominated from the start, with two great chances to score – one from Dayot Upamecano, whose miss-hit, close-range shot was cleared off the line by Álvaro Carreras, and another from Serge Gnabry, who couldn’t take advantage of Thiago Pitarch’s misplaced pass which left him in on goal facing Lunin. Eventually, they went ahead through Luis Díaz, finishing off a cleverly worked move involving Harry Kane and Serge Gnabry, in the 41st minute.
Kane’s goal to make it 0-2, just 20 seconds into the second half, made the comeback feel even more distant. Arbeloa’s halftime team talk must surely have involved Madrid starting aggressively, with intensity, taking the game to Bayern.
Instead, they were alarmingly passive: Vinicius Junior played a poor pass to Carreras, under pressure, who gave away possession cheaply. As Vinícius and Mbappé jogged back towards their own goal, Bayern worked the ball up to Kane, totally unattended outside the box, to stroke the ball past Lunin.
“We made two mistakes [for the goals],” Arbeloa said. “We lost the ball twice. We have to avoid that. Against these teams if you make mistakes, you pay for it.”
It was in the last half-hour that Madrid were at their most dangerous, Bayern tiring in their press, as the home side enjoyed more space to run into.
Three good chances came in seven minutes, just after the hour. First Vinicius Junior, played in by Upamecano’s weak header, tried to round Manuel Neuer, was forced wide and was unable to get his shot back on target. Then Mbappé went close twice, denied once by Neuer, before shooting across the face of goal shortly afterwards. Mbappé kept going.
“That’s the Mbappé we want to see,” Arbeloa said. “He was a constant threat.”
More threat came when Trent Alexander-Arnold got on the ball. His deliveries from the right had looked like one of Madrid’s most promising routes towards goal all night, and now he crossed for Mbappé, whose far-post shot crept over the line after being initially saved by Neuer.
As Madrid pushed for a second goal, there was danger, too, at the other end. Three times in the last minutes of the game, Bayern could have finished off the tie. Substitute Éder Militão — who improved Madrid significantly when he was introduced — blocked a cross bound for the six-yard box, before Bayern went close twice more, in the 89th and 91st minutes, wasting one three-on-one break.
Madrid’s task for the second leg in Munich next week will be made harder by the absence of their most consistent player this season, Aurélien Tchouaméni, who will be suspended, and has no natural replacement in midfield.
They will have to be bold, and play on the front foot, an approach alien to a team which has been more comfortable with a more conservative, deep block style.
“If any team can win in Munich, it’s Real Madrid,” Arbeloa insisted in his post-match news conference. They might.
Madrid could still produce something extraordinary and unexpected in Germany, as they have before. In Vinicius, Mbappé, Bellingham and Valverde, they have the players who make it possible.
But even with a much-improved last half hour here, what they did at the Bernabéu wasn’t sufficient. They’ll need to do more in Munich, and in reaching for that, will also be more vulnerable.
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