Mané Fires Liverpool Past FC Bayern and into Champions League Quarters
The German steamroller is back where it believes where it belongs.
In its home nation, anyway.
FC Bayern has resumed leadership of the Bundesliga, something they treat like a birthright, and they're favored to win anoher DFB-Pokal. Then there's the Champions League bracket play. Die Roten are also back where they've always been there, too.
Eliminated.
On a wet night in Munich, experienced Bayern tormentor Jürgen Klopp took his Liverpudlians into the Allianz and extracted a 1-3 result out of it, courtesy of a Sadio Mané double and a Virgil van Dijk header. Bayern could only get on the board because of a Joel Matip own goal.
The match began at an intense pace. Die Roten were pushing hard to run the Pool into fatigue, but no one has a relentless work rate like English teams. It's just what they do.
In the 26th minute, Mané gathered in a long pass at the box's edge.
Manuel Neuer tried to intercept the Senegalese winger, who foiled him by taking a detour and brilliantly sand-wedged a looping finish:
Bayern leveled things up in the 39th when a Serge Gnabry cross from the right deflected off Matip and caromed across the line as Robert Lewandowski was running behind him unmarked:
For a moment afterward, die Roten grew into the game, threatening Alisson Becker late in the first half, but the Pool ultimately kept them in check.
Then the Liverpudlians got back to work.
In the 69th, a James Milner corner from the left found van Dijk, who outjumped everyone and used the old bean:
Bayern was totally stifled, and Mané kept making it worse for them.
In the 84th, following a spiffy Mohamed Salah cross, the Senegalese international nodded home another one:
This victory put four Premiership sides into the quarter-finals. Here are the other three joining the Reds:
- Tottenham Hotspur, who edged their seemingly perennial Euro-foe, BVB Dortmund,
- Manchester City, who absolutely throttled Schalke 04, and
- Manchester United, who exposed Paris St-Germain yet again.
Not a bad haul for the world's most intense football conference.
Click on a photo to enlarge.
