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MOTD: Bayern Munich 6-1 FC Porto (7-4 agg)
All Porto had to do was defend, defend, defend. Naught else was necessary; they’d even have gone through to the Champions League semifinal with a 1-0 or 2-1 defeat. The Portuguese champions had kept Bayern Munich at bay before, in the first leg, soaking up the pressure Bayern applied, conceding only once and scoring three times at home.
But by the time Bayern Munich were through, they had hit six goals and abolished all Porto’s dreams back to Lisbon. The quality and cohesion in the squad that lacked in the first leg was on display in spades, to a ridiculous extent. If they hadn’t eased off the gas in the second leg, Pep Guardiola’s men could have racked up eight or nine, possibly even pierced double digits.
On paper, all Bayern needed was two goals, if they kept a clean sheet, to rectify their 3-1 loss in the first leg and advance in the Champions League. Yet in reality, the German champions needed a lot more to banish the memories of that terrible, self-inflicted loss. That was this performance.
The signs were bright when they had those goals — nonetheless, a reliving benchmark — within the first twenty-two minutes. Bayern burst out of the gates and Robert Lewandowski curled wide from the edge of the box early on. With just the minutes gone, Lewandowski also hit the base of the post after Fabiano’s save from Thomas Muller’s effort rebounded into the mixer.
Although Bayern lacked Arjen Robben and Frank Ribery down the wings, they overtook Porto all too easily in the wide areas — fourteen minutes in, Thiago Alcantara nicked ahead of his marker to flick Juan Bernat’s cross in at the near post. Eight minutes later Holger Badstuber kept a corner alive at the far post and Jerome Boateng snuck another header in at the far post. A third came by the twenty-seventh minute, this even more beautiful than the others: Muller checked his run to flick Philipp Lahm’s cross from the right onto Lewandowski, who bulleted a header into the bottom right corner.
At the end of the first half alone, Bayern had five goals. Muller’s low, long-range effort took a wicked deflection to put it past Fabiano before the German assisted Lewandowski’s incisive check-back and finish from six yards out with a low cross. Almost as remarkable as Bayern’s comeback was Porto’s shocking fall from grace. Admittedly, it took a masterclass but at the end of the first half, Julen Lopetegui’s side were reduced to shambles. Dinamo Bucureşti’s Champions League record 11-0 win over Crusaders in the 1973/1974 season looked at risk, much less a 10-0 scoreline for which Bayern were on track, which hasn’t been achieved in the Champions League since the early 1980s.
Alas, Guardiola called his men off as he brought Dante on for Alcantara and also gave twenty-one-year-old midfielder Mitchell Weiser run. Porto even got a consolation goal, as Jackson Martinez headed Hector Herrera’s cross in from close range.
Bayern had one more piece of genius left in them, though. With just two minutes to go Ivan Marcano was sent off for a rash, high, and two-footed challenge on Alcantara on the edge of the box — emulating Porto’s frustration — but his exorcism only worsened his damnation: Xabi Alonso curled a peach of a free-kick into the top-left corner of the net to put the icing on the comprehensive, six-layered cake, so to say.
Man of the Match: Thomas Muller
Homepage photo credit: rayand on Flickr