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Real Madrid v Bayern Munich: Champions League quarter-final first leg – live | Champions League
Key events
28 min: Great chance for Gnabry!
Lunin plays a short pass to Pitarch, who tries to give it back to Lunin but instead sets up Gnabry six yards out. His instinctive flick hits Lunin and dribbles wide of the far post.
Real have lost possession in and around the penalty area at least five times already.
26 min Vinicius’s deflected cross from the left threatens to sneak into the net and is well stopped by the backpedalling Neuer. He then throws the ball straight to Alexander-Arnold, whose fierce shot from the edge of the area is blocked.
25 min Possession percentage: Real 42-56 Bayern. Five shots apiece.
24 min Olise slips Carreras with ease, then tries to go past Guler, who gets a toe to the ball and concedes a corner. Guler had to make that or it would have been a penalty.
This time Olise’s corner is poor, straight into the hands of Lunin.
23 min Bayern have just toyed with Real in and around the area for a good 30 seconds. They couldn’t create a shooting opportunity, but they are playing some beautiful football.
21 min Olise looks like he has the beating of the Real left-back Carreras. On the other side, Alexander-Arnold has started well against his old teammate Luis Diaz.
18 min Gnabry’s shot on the turn is blocked after a mistake by Vinicius Jr. Real break and Vinicius Jr. flashes a curler from the edge of the area that is pushed away by Neuer, diving low to his left.
That’s a decent save from Neuer, and this is a belter of a game.
16 min: Good save by Neuer!
Real have come to life. First Tah makes a vital interception on the stretch; then Guler, in the inside-left channel, slides a teasing pass into the area for Mbappe. He runs off Upamecano and screws a left-foot shot that is excellently blocked by the outrushing Neuer.
16 min Mbappe is fouled on the right wing by Laimer, which allows Real to set up camp on the edge of the Bayern area. Alexander-Arnold curls an extremely inviting ball that is a yard or two in front of Huijsen among others.
12 min Bayern continue to dominate possession – and, crucially, to cut off Real’s counter-attacks at source. That won’t always be the case, not against Mbappe and Vinicius, so they’ll want to strike while they’re on top.
10 min In Upamecano’s defence, the ball from Kane was fractionally behind him and bounced slightly higher than he would have liked. Even so, I’d have scored that with Spandex trousers on he should have scored.
9 min: Off the line by Carreras!
Upamecano has missed a sitter! Kimmich, 30 yards from goal in the inside-left channel, curled a brilliant ball that cleared the Real defence and reached Kane beyond the far post. He could have gone for goal but instead cushioned a volley back across goal to give Upamecano an easier chance from five yards. Upamecano didn’t connect properly with his shot, hitting the ball into the ground, and Carreras had time to get back and clear off the line.
8 min Kimmich’s inswinging corner is fingertipped over the bar by Lunin. He might have been trying to score there.
The next corner is curled beyond the far post, with Lunin again flailing at fresh air, and eventually leads to a mishit overhead kick by Gnabry that is blocked.
Bayern have started superbly.
7 min Olise’s free-kick clips a Real head in the wall and flies just over the bar with Lunin diving across goal. Lunin comes for the resulting corner, gets nowhere near it and is grateful to see Huijsen head it out of play on the far side.
6 min Olise is tripped just outside the area by Huijsen, an ill-judged and probably nervous challenge. This is a chance for Bayern…
3 min Vinicius Jr. pulls out to the left to receive possession, then surges into life and runs at Upamecano just inside the area. Upamecano goes to ground to make a meaty and fair challenge.
1 min An early half chance for Bayern, with the left-back Laimer sweeping over the bar from the edge of the area.
1 min Peep peep! Bayern kick off from right to left as we watch.
The players line up for the Champions League music, most with their gamefaces firmly applied. The atmosphere is spectacular, and that’s just in the Guardian liveblog bunker.
“I spent the first three years of my life in Europe in Hunedoara, where Mircea Lucescu was a household name,” writes Krishnamoorthy V. “He was as well known as the Corvin Castle. Another yesteryear great goes away.”
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Ah, g’wan.
Harry Paterson’s preview
Bayern Munich visit the Spanish capital with wind in their sails: they have lost only twice in 43 matches this season, are on an unbeaten run of 13 games, and have won nine of their 10 games in the Champions League. Their 10-2 demolition of Atalanta in the last 16 served as a timely reminder of their attacking firepower.
They rested a few important players in their 3-2 win at Freiberg at the weekend and, with the Bundesliga title all but secured and a place in the DFB-Pokal semi-finals booked, their attention is fixed on the task ahead at the Bernabéu. Yet, for all of their domestic dominance, Bayern have failed to beat Real in their last nine attempts. The good news is that, even though Harry Kane missed England’s defeat to Japan last week, he trained with the squad on Monday and has travelled to Madrid.
Real Madrid will relish the prospect of hosting Bayern, not least because they have gone on to lift the trophy the past four times they have eliminated the German side from the competition. Their recent domestic form does give reason to temper expectations, though; their 2-1 defeat to Real Mallorca on Saturday allowed Barcelona to move seven points clear at the top of La Liga. If anything, that setback will only sharpen their focus with the Champions League.
Real lost three matches in the league phase, forcing them to overcome Benfica in the playoffs, but they are a different force in the knockouts – as shown by their 5-1 aggregate win against Manchester City in the last 16. They knocked Bayern out in the semi-finals in 2023-24, 2017-18 and 2013-14, as well as in the quarter-finals in 2016-17, so have history on their side.
Thibaut Courtois is still missing after picking up an injury against Manchester City last month, so Madrid will rely on Andriy Lunin. Rodrygo, Ferland Mendy and Dani Ceballos may also miss out but Kylian Mbappé – the top scorer in the competition this season with 13 goals – is fit. Prediction: Bayern to progress after a draw in the first leg.
“Football is just not as exciting as it once was,” weeps Justin Kavanagh. “If a 26-year-old waiter were to run on to the field tonight and clock both Harry Kane and the referee, you can be sure he’d be doing it off balance and with little power because he’d be busy taking a selfie with his non-swinging arm.”
The game’s gone.
At the end of tonight’s game, a Real Madrid fan will charge onto the pitch, chin Harry Kane and flatten the referee Michael Oliver.
No, of course they won’t. But that is essentially what happened at the end of the first ever meeting between Real and Bayern. The footage is kinda bonkers: watch for the affronted gentleman who sprints into view from behind the goal.
Bayern will hope to get over what has become an awkward hurdle. In five of the six seasons since they last won the Champions League, they’ve gone out in the quarter-finals.
Sporting v Arsenal is the night’s other Champions League game. You can follow that with Yara El-Shaboury.
Some very sad breaking news: Romanian legend Mircea Lucescu, who coached the team in the World Cup playoffs less than a fortnight ago, has died at the age of 80.
The second leg is in Munich a week tomorrow. The winners will meet Paris Saint-Germain or Liverpool in another heavyweight contest.
Real Madrid v Bayern Munich: a short history
There is footage of a notorious incident at the final whistle, when an affronted Madrid fan hared on to the pitch, chinned Gerd Müller as he ran past and then floored the referee, Erich Linemayr, with one punch. A dazed Müller was carried from the field. Real were banned from European competition for a year; the newspaper Marca said: “Uefa has assassinated its own father.” Uefa brought him back to life when they lifted the ban a few weeks later. But Madrid were so irked that they hired a team of private detectives to track down the assailant. A 26-year-old waiter from Madrid was eventually identified.
The players on a yellow card
There are a few, including some big hitters.
Real Madrid Huijsen, Carreras, Tchouameni, Vinicius Jr, Mbappe, Bellingham.
Bayern Munich Laimer, Upamecano.
Team news
Real Madrid make three changes to the side that won 2-1 at the Etihad in their last Champions League game: Andriy Lunin, Alvaro Carreras and Kylian Mbappe replace Thibaut Courtois, Fran Garcia and Brahim Diaz. That means Jude Bellingham, who has only recently returned from injury, stays on the bench.
Bayern’s team is as expected, with two changesfrom the first leg of their 10-2 aggregate victory over Atalanta. (They picked a number of second-string players for the second leg and frankly there’s no point listing them all as they were never likely to start tonight and most of them are on the bench anyway.) Manuel Neuer and Harry Kane replace Jonas Urbig and Nicolas Jackson.
One battle to look out for: Trent Alexander-Arnold is up against his old Liverpool teammate Luis Diaz.
Real Madrid (4-2-2-2) Lunin; Alexander-Arnold, Rudiger, Huijsen, Carreras; Tchouameni, Pitarch; Valverde, Guler; Mbappe, Vinicius Jr.
Subs: Gonzalez, Carvajal, Eder Militao, Alaba, Bellingham, Camavinga, Gonzalo Garcia, Asencio, Ceballos, Francisco Garcia, Diaz, Mastantuono.
Bayern Munich (4-2-3-1) Neuer; Stanisic, Upamecano, Tah, Laimer; Kimmich, Pavlovic; Olise, Gnabry, Diaz; Kane.
Subs: Urbig, Kim, Goretzka, Musiala, Jackson, Davies, Bischof, Ito, Guerreiro, Osmani, Karl.
Referee Michael Oliver.
Kane starts for Bayern
Harry Kane, who was doubtful for the game, is in the Bayern XI. We’ll have the full team news in a second.
Preamble
Hello, buenas noches, guten abend, and welcome to live coverage of Real Madrid v Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals. Just as everybody needs a bosom for a pillow, so every football competition needs a clásico: an impossible-to-overhype-but-let’s-bloody-well-try contest between two giant teams. Hell, last weekend there were four clásicos on Hackney Marshes alone!*
With apologies to AC Milan, Joseph Bloggs and others, Real v Bayern is the clásico of European football. This is their 29th meeting and 14th two-legged tie, both Uefa records, and all have taken place in the European Cup or Champions League. In eight of the previous 13 ties, the winner went all the way that season.
It would be unwise to make such an assumption about this year’s tie, given the quality elsewhere in the competition, but whoever emerges from this heavyweight contest will understandably have the whiff of destiny in their nostrils.
Most people have Bayern as favourites: they finished second in the league phase, seven places ahead of Real, and are gallivanting to another Bundesliga title. Real, by contrast, lost to Mallorca at the weekend and are seven points behind Barcelona in La Liga.
Form, logic, reason, sanity: they rarely get a look-in when Real Madrid play in the Champions League. Anything could happen, which is just the way we like it ahead of a clásico.
Kick off 8pm.
* We may and indeed have made this up
One fan, Courtney, said: “I bought my ticket in the PayPal pre-sale three or four days ago. I had looked at flights and accommodation, but my friend, she’s been a big Kanye West fan since she was about 13, and she’s just bought her ticket this morning.
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