It was a moment of cool, utterly unflappable intuition that sealed the night and showed that Manchester City are now armed with something for Europe that they didn’t have before.
By the time the lingering rain had lifted and they’d put a foot into the semi-final, Erling Haaland had put a ball into the net from close range – but it was his provision for the decisive second goal, for Bernardo Silva, that really took the lead your breath away.
Without so much as a glance across the penalty area in his peripheral vision, he lifted the ball so that the goalscorer could accelerate into it. Haaland may be a ‘freight train’, to quote one of last night’s more memorable descriptions, but the pictures he paints and the passes he gives are subtle and quite beautiful. No. City didn’t have this before.
The stadium didn’t seem to realize what this could mean for the team, as the venue certainly didn’t bounce.
The small, excited German contingent made all the noise and an element of introspection was understandable for City – a club that stressed, perhaps a little too much, that this tournament is about the journey as well as the destination. A sixth consecutive year past eight and still no sign of the ultimate endgame.
Erling Haaland put in a great performance against Bayern Munich on Tuesday night
He scored one goal, assisted another for Bernardo Silva and created the space for Rodri’s opener
The highlight was a brilliantly intuitive pass to wrong-foot his Portuguese team-mate
“Manchester City has never been gone,” said Ruben Dias in the match program. “We have always been on the run and we were getting closer and closer. Everything that happened in the past, let’s not be negative.’
The legend, first written down by the man who also brought Manchester his Afflecks Palace, is that ‘on the sixth day God created Manchester City’ and the general idea is that there will be a Champions League trophy in the sixth year.
That’s not how football works, of course. There will be a ‘stone in the wheel’ – to quote Thomas Tuchel’s description of what his Chelsea team wanted to be when they beat City in the 2021 final.
Even with the team so finely tuned – Bernardo Silva beats Alphonso Davies on the outside and returns to beat him a second time; the inspired Jack Grealish that makes Benjamin Pavard look average – there’s always the unexpected to manipulate the plan in the more balanced games.
Rodri’s opener was a brilliant stroke, but Haaland’s intelligence made it happen
The 22-year-old dragged world-class defender Dayot Upamecano out of position
And that’s where Haaland comes in. “He came here to help us win the Champions League,” Guardiola said before this match, quickly adding the rider, “and the other competitions.”
And if City gets past this band to a point where the pips really start to squeak, he’ll bring the new dimension. His brooding presence can dispel the ghosts that have gathered for City in this league over the years.
Rodri, of course, was the one who will get the credit for his first ever Champions League goal today, although it was Haaland, on the verge of danger as the Spaniard arced his shot, which was significant. It was he who shook up Bayern’s Dayot Upamecano’s radar and gave his team-mate a clear view of goal. Haaland loitered nearby, waiting to fall on whatever might come along and Upamecano was irresistibly dragged towards him.
We’re talking about one of the world’s best defenders – an outstanding presence in the World Cup final whose sliding block for France in extra time to deny Argentina’s Lautaro Martinez was one of that tournament’s outstanding defensive interventions.
Yet Haaland had exactly the same effect on Upamecano as Ilkay Gundogan’s shot produced a top-order save from Jann Sommer, who reached out to block. Upamecano’s distraction led him to follow Haaland’s diagonal run and miss his jump to meet Bernardo Silva’s cross.
Haaland has given City something they didn’t have before and helped them step foot into the Champions League semi-finals
Jack Grealish has been in great form over the past few weeks and seems to be feeding off his Norwegian teammate
It helped on this occasion that the opposition was terribly poor and a pale imitation of the Bayern sides of old. This is a match that damaged City throughout their Champions League years, with Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery having devastating consequences.
An animated Tuchel jumped up and down dramatically, vaguely reminiscent of a kangaroo, while Guardiola, again the best-dressed person in the house, calmly supervised his own operations in a raincoat. But Serge Gnabry presented none of the expected threats. Leroy Sane brought only fleeting danger.
The decline of the German team reflects a broader point about this tournament that no one at City would dare utter: that Guardiola’s side have not had a more promising landscape than this. Real Madrid is adrift in La Liga. Chelsea was the only English challenge. It is Napoli who poses the greatest threat.
Grealish is the one who seems most supported by Haaland. His heel sending the striker left to cross in front of Silva was his second of the night and proof that he works on a different level to that desperate Madrid event he did for City a year ago.
Haaland seized that opportunity and after the cross for Silva, his own contribution to the scoresheet came. His anticipation of John Stones’ header put him in a different dimension to the defender. It was a regulation finish.
“It’s learning after learning, again mixed with our ambition,” Dias said of City’s European efforts in that match schedule interview. “We’re going to do our best again.” While Haaland leads, the rest seem to follow.