EHansi Flick has already played 34 games as head coach of a professional club. Now there is only one more thing missing to achieve the greatest that is possible in club football: winning the Champions League and thus the triple of the three most important titles of a season. With a 3-0 win in the semifinals against Olympique Lyon with two goals from Serge Gnabry before the break (18th / 33rd minute) and Robert Lewandowski in the final phase (85th), the German champions and cup winners have the final on Wednesday reached the premier class, in which on Sunday, also in Lisbon, another French opponent is waiting with Paris Saint-Germain. “Lyon put a lot of pressure on us. They also had a few chances, we were a bit lucky at the beginning, “said Gnabry at DAZN:” We’ll give everything on Sunday to get the title. “
“We want to be the best team in Europe, that’s a huge incentive, it would be the crowning glory of a great season,” Gnabry said at a video press conference the day before the semi-finals. The 8: 2 in the quarter-finals against FC Barcelona caused “great euphoria”, “the game was an exclamation point”, but against the defensively very good Lyoner, Gnabry demanded, “you have to be there from the first minute as you were against Barcelona”.
This resolution did not quite succeed. For more than a quarter of an hour, Lyon were the more dangerous team, while Bayern were still looking for their concept. After four minutes, a bad pass from Thiago into Maxence Caqueret’s feet almost led the favorite to fall behind. Caqueret’s steep pass through the center brought Memphis Depay between the two Bayern central defenders into a one-on-one situation with Manuel Neuer. The Dutchman was able to curve around the Bayern goalkeeper, but then got the ball, pushed to the right, only to the outer netting of the abandoned goal.
Hint: Serge Gnabry brought Bayern into the lead
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Image: EPA
Leon Goretzka had the first Bayern chance after eleven minutes, he only grazed the ball with his volley, but that was exactly what made it dangerous for goalkeeper Anthony Lopes – he crawled after the crooked shot and dived around the post. Almost in return, the great chance for Lyon again when Maxwel Cornet prevailed on the counterattack against Goretzka, but did not get the ball in a promising two-on-one majority to Toko Ekambi, because Jerome Boateng barely blocked the pass path. After 17 minutes the ball came through to Ekambi, the fast Cameroonian prevailed on the right wing against Alphonso Davies, hit a hook in the penalty area and luckily hit the right post from five meters for Bayern.
Less than a minute after the outsider missed the lead, the ball was in the other goal. Gnabry pulled in from the right wing in the manner of his famous predecessor Arjen Robben, found the path between four defenders with irresistible dynamism to a final position and hit the left corner from a full run from 16 meters – his eighth goal in these champions League season.
Object of desire: the Champions League trophy
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Image: dpa
The ninth of the now unleashed right winger seemed only a matter of time. Lopes was able to fend off a sharp bounce from Gnabry’s half-right position with difficulty (25th). When Gnabry scored his second goal eight minutes later, he had prepared it almost completely himself, as with the first – he won the ball in the opposing half, accelerated to top speed, sent Ivan Perisic into the penalty area on the left and at the end steered as Lewandowski stumbling whose cross could not bring the ball into the net. “I’m glad it went in like this,” said Flick of the first goal. “That also gave us a little more security.”
It almost turned into a hat trick. A cross turned inward by Gnabry missed Lewandowski’s foot by inches and flew thinly behind the post into the goal. Lyon’s defense, however stable against Juventus Turin and Manchester City, increasingly lost its cohesion. And so, two minutes before the break, it was no longer a Frenchman who could still prevent Bayern’s third goal, but the otherwise most dangerous Bavarian. In a counterattack through the center, Leon Goretzka pulled off at full speed, imagining the ball was already on the way into the left corner of the goal, but then the thigh of the steeply started colleague Lewandowski was in the way.
After the restart, the French deviated a little from their previously successful pure defense plus counterattack tactic in the successes against Juventus Turin and Manchester City and looked for more possession and risk, which opened new spaces for Bayern. After a fine pass from Davies, Perisic suddenly ran towards the goalkeeper alone, but managed only one harmless shot (51 ‘). Then Bayern’s seemingly secure lead suddenly began to wobble. After a mistake by Boateng’s substitute Niklas Süle, goalkeeper Neuer had to show a world-class parade against the completely free Ekambi in order to prevent the next goal. With a lot of struggle, a little luck and Lewandowski’s 15th goal of the season in the premier class, Bayern crossed the finish line. Five days after the 8-2 gala there was a 3-0 win at work. Its worth was the same.
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