1 week ago
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Bayern Munich have everything to do if they are to claim the Champions League on home turf. This was a party thoroughly spoiled by Inter, who might have feared the worst when Thomas Müller scored a rapturously-received equaliser five minutes from time. Müller’s 25-year spell at Bayern will end this summer and everybody thought they could read the script. Then the substitute Davide Frattesi ripped it up, adding to Lautaro Martínez’s brilliant opener and exacerbating the potential costliness of a glaring first-half miss from Harry Kane.
“Kings of the cup”, a display from Bayern’s Südkurve had read before kick-off. In fairness Bayern genuinely believe they are: Real Madrid are the only institution with as discernible an aura, regardless of who is rolled out, when the Champions League reaches its business end. The sense was they would require that confidence in a tie that had looked delicately poised. Alphonso Davies’ serious knee injury, sustained on international duty to Bayern’s fury, was one thing; the absence of Dayot Upamecano was another and then, last Friday, came the hamstring tear that stacked odds in Inter’s favour.
Jamal Musiala’s injury at Augsburg appeared costly. It demands someone else to perforate wafer-thin margins on nights like this. Early on Michael Olise, still to cut loose on the big occasion, looked capable of stepping up. Bayern peppered Yann Sommer in the opening quarter and should have been ahead even before Kane squandered a sitter.
It was Olise who did the hard work with a mazy run from right to left. He resisted the chance to shoot and found an open Kane who, wrapping his foot around the ball, looked certain to score. Instead he grazed the far post, to a chorus of disbelief: a moment to regret in Kane’s quest for the trophy he so craves?
Bayern had already broken Inter’s lines freely, their fluidity not suffering for the selection of Raphaël Guerreiro in Musiala’s No 10 spot. Olise was inches wide with a fizzing drive, having darted in from his right-wing perch, in the fifth minute and then chipped across for Kane to head into Sommer’s arms. Another meaty strike by Olise was grabbed by Sommer, a short-lived Bayern old boy.
Then came two closer calls, Sommer saving to his right after Guerreiro had broken through and then beating away yet another Olise attempt. Bayern had limited Inter to scraps in the first 25 minutes but, crucially, they had not scored.
Inter appeared to take heart from Kane’s miss. On the half-hour a slick move saw Carlos Augusto thud into the side netting, before Martínez stumbled when clear and allowed Kim Min-jae to clean up. Nicolò Barella was finding his range in midfield and their goal was as clinical as it seemed inevitable. Augusto made ground down the left and centred low for Marcus Thuram, whose presence of thought to flick backwards to Martínez was breathtaking. The finish, taken first time with the outside of Martínez’s foot, matched its creation.
It had been anything but a circumspect first half. That was partly because both teams had looked frayed and relatively easy to cut through, Inter’s parsimonious league phase campaign especially far flung. Bayern’s porousness reared up again shortly after the interval, Martínez almost getting away following a simple short-free kick move but seeing Leon Goretzka intervene. Then the Argentinian should have doubled his tally, finding space on the box to batter an effort that was too close for Jonas Urbig.
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Olise, quiet since that opening flurry, rallied and saw a shot blocked. Bayern had barely threatened since Kane fluffed his lines and, as the hour passed, looked short of ideas. Josip Stanisic, who had been redeployed in Davies’ position, could not offer anything like the attacking drive of his stricken colleague. Eventually he appeared on the end of a cross from Konrad Laimer, his right-sided equivalent, only to nod a fair opportunity too high; it signalled a fresh squall in which Guerreiro volleyed a foot over but Inter appeared secure now.
Müller promptly entered to the night’s biggest roar. He and Serge Gnabry were charged with restoring parity, the latter quickly threatening. With 10 minutes left Kane smelt redemption but cracked wide; soon afterwards Müller went for his own fairytale but a heroic Benjamin Pavard block had other ideas.
The veteran was not to be denied a seemingly magic moment, poaching a Laimer cross from point blank range and putting the wind firmly in Bayern’s sails. But then Augusto marauded into vacant space and delivered again, Frattesi hammering past Urbig and giving Inter a foot in the last four.
