Sacked back-to-back by PSG and Chelsea following UCL failures, will Bayern Munich also send the coach packing if he again fails to progress this time, over Man City?
By Ed Emeanua
Is it a case of three strikes and you’re out for the venerable Thomas Tuchel at Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich, following their 3-0 mauling by a Manchester City side on a rampage at the Etihad Stadium Tuesday?
Finally, is it time for the German manager to be sacked for good after he has again failed to satisfy the UCL Championship appetite of yet another club, thereby, earning him his third straight strike as well as his third back-to-back dismissal by a club side?
The reverse fixture of this dicey UEFA Champions League (UCL) quarter finals tie scheduled for Munich in just a matter of days may yet hold the key that would seal the fate of these giants of modern European football.
It would inevitably reveal to the football fraternity which of the pair wound advance to the next stage of the continent’s most glamorous club football schedules, and which of them must fall by the way side.
It could also reveal the fate of Bayern’s manager at a club that hired him after despite suffering back-to-back dismissals by his two previous clubs after crashing out with them in the same championship.
Before this game and even deep into it, nobody in their right mind would dare to predict such a scandalous scoreline at such a level of the UCL.
Most had actually predicted a tight game with a likely marginal victory at the least for any of the teams, or if the worst must come to the worst, a draw with a lean scoreline at the most.
Pep’s men pummel former side in first-leg stunner
Well, well, well! This is football for you!
It football and just a game where predictions mostly end as the dream of fogged minds, or the mere conjecture of sundry whimsical thinkers.
Though, before the 27th minute of this pulsating tie, all bets were still on the table for the taking as Tuchel’s side kept its defensive shape as Pep Guardiola’s Man City chose the more conservative approach of being contented to just pick-and-roll in counter-attacking spurts.
Then, Rodrigo Hernández Cascante, or Rodri for short, struct on the 27th minute mark to edge Man City into the lead.
This was only Rodri’s goal second goal ever in his quite illustrious UCL championship career, a strike that would remain a sensational masterpiece any day.
Someone should have picked up the Spaniard as he dangerously lurked outside Bayern’s eighteen yards box, but failed to do so.
When the ball eventually found Rodri, Jamal Musiala had rushed the rescue, but was deftly side-stepped, before finding more than enough time to curl diligently his left footed shot beyond the futile sprawling reach of Yann Sommer in Bayern’s goal.
The very cagey Man City team, however held on their slim lead, till the end of the first half.
In the second half, Man City continued to pick-and roll in spurts as usual, until a piece of tantalizing counter-attacking football display in the 70th minute saw Bernardo Silva connect his powerful header unto Jack Grealish’s well timed cross from the left following Dayot Upamecano’s woeful defense-line mixup, to score the second goal for Man City.
As expected, Erling Haaland, the Man City Norwegian prolific scorer wont be left unsung. His strike and Man City’s third on the day appeared to be the death knell for Bayern’s defensive lapses and unbeaten record in this 2022-2023 UCL championship. But with the second leg in Munich still to be played, who can tell?
After all, this is still a game of football, where all predictions remain mere whimsical conjectures until the game is played, won, lost or drawn.
As it is commonly stated in football parlance, ‘it is not over until it is over,’ and you can bet that. Well! Well! Well!
