MADRID – Sometimes that famous magic of the Bernabéu is not enough.
Real Madrid have had many great UEFA Champions League nights at this stadium, beating often superior teams in often inexplicable circumstances. But in Tuesday's 2-1 loss to Bayern Munich, reality caught up with them and a comeback was out of reach.
Playing against a talented, confident and fluid Bayern side, Madrid spent the first hour looking pretty normal. The visitors were superior, more than the match score suggested. But as the second half progressed, the dynamic slowly but surely changed. Madrid began to create a constant flow of chances, Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé getting closer and closer.
When Mbappé finally scored a goal in the 74th minute, the cautiously hopeful Bernabeu crowd found their voices, as Madrid pushed for more. But the tie never materialized, largely thanks to Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer and his outstanding nine saves.
By the final whistle, both teams had shot 20 times, creating a similar number of chances (15-14 in Madrid's favor, with three of Madrid's scored by Opta as “big chances” compared to Bayern's two), although Bayern's xG (expected goals) of 2.99 comfortably surpassed Madrid's 1.97.
A one-goal margin means the tie is wide open as the teams head to Munich for next week's second leg. “We are alive,” coach Álvaro Arbeloa repeated several times after the game.
“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 during much of this match was that Arbeloa's team had found its level, its few strengths and more weaknesses, exposed in the focus of the Champions League, against elite rivals.
Vincent Kompany's Bayern dominated from the beginning, with two great scoring chances: one from Dayot Upamecano, whose missed shot from close range was cleared by Álvaro Carreras, and another from Serge Gnabry, who failed to take advantage of a misplaced pass from Thiago Pitarch that left him in the goal against Lunin. They finally took the lead through Luis Díaz, finishing off a skillfully worked play between Harry Kane and 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 further away. Arbeloa's team talk at halftime surely must have implied that Madrid started aggressively, with intensity, taking the game to Bayern.
Instead, they were alarmingly passive: Vinícius gave a poor pass to Carreras, under pressure, who gave up possession cheaply. As Vinícius and Mbappé raced back to their own goal, Bayern passed the ball to Kane, completely unattended outside the area, to beat Lunin.
“We made two mistakes [for the goals]”Arbeloa said. “We turned the ball over twice. We have to avoid that. “Against these teams, if you make mistakes, you pay for it.”
It was in the last half hour when Madrid seemed most dangerous, Bayern tired in their pressure, while the locals enjoyed more spaces to run.
Three good chances came in seven minutes, just after the hour mark. First, Vinícius, taking advantage of a weak header from Upamecano, tried to go around Neuer, but he went wide and couldn't finish. Mbappé then went close twice, once denied by Neuer, before firing on goal shortly after. Mbappé moved on.
“That's the Mbappé we want to see,” Arbeloa said. “He was a constant threat.”
There was more threat when Trent Alexander-Arnold took the ball. His deliveries from the right had looked like one of Madrid's most promising routes to goal all night, and he now crossed for Mbappé, whose far-post shot skidded over the line after initially being saved by Neuer.
While Madrid looked for the second goal, there was also danger at the other end. Three times in the final minutes of the match, Bayern were able to seal the tie. Substitute Éder Militão, who improved Madrid significantly when he was introduced, blocked a cross into the six-yard box, before Bayern went closer twice, in the 89th and 91st minutes, wasting a three-on-one break.
Madrid's task for the second leg in Munich next week will be made difficult by the absence of its most consistent player this season, Aurélien Tchouaméni, who will be suspended and has no natural substitute in midfield.
They will have to be bold and play off the front foot, an approach foreign to a team that has become more comfortable with a more conservative, deep blocking style.
“If any team can win in Munich it is Real Madrid,” Arbeloa insisted in his post-match press conference. They could do it.
Madrid could still produce something extraordinary and unexpected in Germany, as it has done before. In Vinicius, Mbappé, Jude Bellingham and Federico Valverde they have the players who make it possible.
But even with a much improved final half hour here, what they did at the Bernabeu wasn't enough. They will have to do more in Munich and, in doing so, they will also be more vulnerable.
