Following Bayern Munich’s Champions League semi-final elimination at the hands of Atletico Madrid, Pep Guardiola will end his three-year stay in Bavaria without winning the trophy.
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After losses in the past two years to Barcelona and Real Madrid at this stage, Bayern need to overturn a 1-0 deficit against Atletico Madrid, the team with the finest defence in Europe.
The hosts even had the chance to double the lead as Atletico’s Jose Maria Gimenez felled Javi Martinez inside the box to cause a penalty in the 34th minute.
Trailing 1-0 from the first leg, Bayern levelled the tie through former Liverpool midfielder Xavi Alonso but wasted a golden opportunity to press ahead as Thomas Muller’s penalty was repelled by Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak.
Bayern eventually restored their lead in the 74th minute, as Alaba’s cross found Arturo Vidal, who headed the ball back across the face of goal for Lewandowski to convert into an empty net, 2-1. “But above all, what matters most is that we make the final”.
Griezmann added: “We are happy”.
Man City, however, held a Ronaldo-less Real Madrid scoreless in the first leg of the semi-finals and hope to do so again on Wednesday.
Diego Simeone is often guilty of allowing his emotions to overcome him during matches but the Argentine hit new heights tonight after slapping one of the club’s officials during their semi-final win against Bayern Munich. It was very intense and I’m so proud of this team.
Torres had no preference over another Madrid derby or an Anglo-Spanish final in Milan.
“The most important thing is that we know who we are we know we can beat anyone”. We want to win, that’s our plan.
“Their penalty would have put them 2-0 ahead and made things very hard for us. We played very well in the second half in Madrid and the match here”, Guardiola said.
After that, it was all Bayern, which had 35 attempts on goal compared to Atletico’s seven over the course of the game.
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But this game goes just beyond a regular 90 minute semifinal.
