Who would you say was Bayern Munich’s most important player against Paris Saint-Germain?
Was it the indefatigable Thomas Muller, UEFA’s choice as man of the match and winner of the (less official) ‘tackle of the night’ award for the challenge on Marco Verratti that opened the door for the home side’s vital first goal of the night?
In the first half, PSG had found it easy to build past Bayern’s first line of red defence, sidestepping their hosts’ isolated attempts to win the ball high up and creating dangerous chances. However, many players referenced Bayern’s deeper, coordinated press after the break as one of the decisive factors that wrought control of the Champions League round of 16 tie.
At one point in the second half of Bayern’s 2-0 second-leg win, sending them through 3-0 on aggregate, Muller raised both hands like Moses parting the Red Sea, ordering his team-mates to break a Parisian ‘wave’ of attacks — although it was more of a trickle by then — from further down the pitch.
Was the decisive figure Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, the forward who unnerved defenders by simply always being there, a 6ft 2in (1.91m), 13 stone (84kg) mosquito that could not be swatted away? He was, after all, the man who tapped the ball into an open net to give a sluggish Bayern the momentum and confidence that had previously eluded them.
Or was there not a case for Alphonso Davies? The Canada star played two positions at once in Julian Nagelsmann’s hybrid system, a wing-back when they had possession and a left-back without, and his epic battle with fellow speedster Achraf Hakimi would not have looked out of place in one of Netflix’s Drive To Survive episodes. Davies’ ability to make up an opponent’s 10-metre headstart underpins Bayern’s risky setup in attack.
But did anyone else have a better claim than Dayot Upamecano? Calm on the ball and pure energy off it, the France centre-half personified Bavarian competence, winning pivotal challenges and keeping Kylian Mbappe far quieter than the home side had feared. Roars of appreciation greeted him with each and every move. By the end of Bayern’s seventh clean sheet in eight Champions League games, the former RB Leipzig player had attained cult hero status at the Allianz Arena.
And yet, there was probably someone even more crucial for Bayern on the night at the heart of defence, the former Ajax captain who switched on when team-mate Yann Sommer lost his head and cleared Vitinha’s shot off the line with a desperate lunge. No one knows what going behind would have done to the Germans’ confidence but thanks to Matthijs De Ligt’s brand of “pure defending”, they did not have to find out. Sommer, the Switzerland international, promised the centre-back “a van-load of Swiss chocolate” in gratitude.
Talking of Sommer, did he not prove the difference across the two legs? Where his counterpart Gianluigi Donnarumma let in Kingsley Coman’s tame effort for the only goal of the first game in Paris, Sommer saved point-blank from Mbappe. In Munich, he recovered from the above blunder to tip away a Sergio Ramos header that seemed destined to hit the net. No wonder Manuel Neuer looked happy walking through the Allianz Arena’s mixed zone afterwards. Thanks to the sizeable abilities of his deputy, Bayern’s Champions League chances have not taken too much of a blow after Neuer’s fateful post-World Cup skiing accident.
And then there was Josip Stanisic. A 22-year-old kid from the academy who had never started a Champions League knockout game before, but trusted to deal with Mbappe and Nuno Mendes. Unfazed and unhurried, the Croatia international did not put a foot wrong. “Stani was outstanding — outstanding,” said sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic.
Jamal Musiala? Eight successful dribbles (more than anyone has managed in a Champions League knockout match since records began 20 years ago), an irrepressible talent who grew into the game, picking up space and tempo to rampage down on the inside left. The chaos he caused in the second half shifted the balance of the tie.
We still need to mention Joshua Kimmich, too — Bayern’s captain without the armband. His tussle with Verratti was one for the ages, with the Germany international getting the upper hand one nudge and challenge at a time. A monster performance.
The same could be said for Leon Goretzka. It fell to the 28-year-old to track Lionel Messi and he delivered a masterclass in disruption, just as he had done in Bayern’s famous 8-2 win over Messi’s Barcelona in 2020. Goretzka was Lawnmower Man, taking down scores of opponents without giving away free kicks.
But Coman was arguably the best Bavarian over the two legs, a born and bred Parisian punishing his former club for a lack of appreciation time and again. Coman ran up and down the right side like a man possessed, providing a more consistent threat than anyone else. He has gone to another level in recent weeks.
There is an argument that Bayern’s bench won the tie, however. Serge Gnabry, Leroy Sane and Sadio Mane stretched whatever was left of PSG’s back line once the home side had taken the lead, and Gnabry’s 89th-minute goal put progress to the quarter-finals beyond doubt.
There could not have been a more pronounced contrast with the lack of spark from PSG’s substitutes. The visitors’ bench resembled a UEFA Youth League line-up, posing the question of how billions of Qatari dollars could have been squandered on such little depth and structure.
The inside track of PSG’s failure
The truth is, of course, that there was no single player who made all the difference, because Bayern are not built like that. They are the antithesis of PSG’s super-star-powered circus — a collective of excellent players who can usually be relied upon to do their job when it matters.
This edition are not (yet) a Pep Guardiola-type machine, spewing out endless passing combinations and wins with cold inevitability, and they are not quite the unstoppable force that won the treble under saintly Jupp Heynckes. You could see in last night’s untidy first half — as well as in almost every single game this season — that there are tensions; moments of indecision and chaos, revealing that the ideas of some players and those of the Guardiola-inspired Nagelsmann are not always aligned.
But application and effort took the place of a perfectly executed game plan in Munich on Wednesday, as motivated, focused players took responsibility to address shortcomings, and a camaraderie emerged that proved infectious.
“There’s a great joy in playing for and with each other in this team,” De Ligt said.
Two-thirds into a season that has been fraught with worries about their many problems, this Bayern team woke up to their possibilities.
(Top photo: S Mellar/Bayern Munich via Getty Images)
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