In the preparation for this chastening defeat at Manchester City, Thomas Tuchel had a lot of proof this could happen, even if he denied much of the evidence of the 3-0.
“It's not a deserved result,” the Bayern Munich manager complained afterwards. “It does not tell the story of this match.”
That’s open to debate, since the entire night tells a few things about the story of the modern game. In the build-up, Tuchel’s staff found that Pep Guardiola’s side had considerably evolved from even 2020-21, and there were now so many more threats and points of attack.
One was obviously Erling Haaland, who scored the third goal having set up the second, and that had more of a twist than his contribution to general play. A few years ago, the Norwegian might well have been at Bayern rather than City. The wider point was that, even allowing for Tuchel’s short time in the job, it was all asking a lot of his team.
So it proved.
This was Guardiola’s most commanding performance in the Champions League at City, a win that felt a culmination of something, even if there is still a long way to go until the trophy itself. It felt a much larger step.
It was one of those victories people routinely call a statement, but there were a few messages within, as well as considerable symbolism.
Around the 67th minute, just at the point when City’s luscious football was starting to really stretch Bayern so they were making more and more errors, the away fans held up a banner.
It read: “Glazers, Sheikh Mansour, all autocrats out! Football belongs to the people.”
At the very sight of that, there was a distinctive sound. The City fans began to loudly sing Mansour’s name. Within seconds, they were celebrating, as Bernardo Silva brilliantly plundered the second goal from Haaland’s cross.
This wasn’t just the winning of the game, and probably the tie. It was a distillation of modern football, an almost unbelievably perfect imperfect moment that summed it all up and explained so many differences: between the teams; between the football cultures; between this season and others; between a rich history and a future irretrievably distorted by money.
The first thing that should be said from all that is that it is an absurdity that a club like Bayern could actually be perceived as underdogs in a tie like this. Many will consider it even more ludicrous, and somewhat rich in another sense, that it is the fans of such a club complaining.
It isn’t an absurdity, though, because that is exactly where the game is. Bayern in part didn’t get Haaland because they can no longer go to City’s wage level. They’re at the point where they struggle to go to a lot of Premier League wages. That is the direction of European football, as the Premier League cannibalises everything else. City now stand at the top of this, requiring everyone else to stretch themselves to the limit in order to compete. The news that Liverpool were pulling out of the Jude Bellingham race because they couldn’t afford him, released while the game was on, was telling in its own way. Bayern were meanwhile never in the race for him.
Many in football will quip that the hierarchy of the German champions are “tasting their own medicine” in that regard, given they have almost entirely cannibalised the Bundesliga. The fans with the banner would be perceived as the chief beneficiaries of this since they get to celebrate so many trophies.
Except, that isn’t always the mood.
Despite all they have won, and partly as a consequence of all they have won, Bayern fans have repeatedly protested their own hierarchy. They caused chaos at their AGM due to the sponsorship with Qatar that has helped make them so much wealthier than the rest of the Bundelsiga.
Bayern supporters have been exceptionally concerned with the game as a collective rather than just at their own club, which is something that remains a fundamental difference between German football culture and English football culture.
The former of course has many flaws, not least a situation that has led to Bayern dominating to such an unhealthy degree. That isn’t down to the Bundesliga’s 50+1 ownership model, though. It is down to playing in a globalised system where Uefa and the major clubs have agreed to regulations that see those major clubs get more and more of the game’s wealth. That is where the main problem lies.
It is what makes the City fans singing of Sheikh Mansour’s name all the more symbolic. The response to a call for the game to belong to the people was to celebrate a figure who, in the most open interpretation, is an owner and royal family member who represents an autocratic state with a highly criticised human rights record.
Human rights groups would not go for that interpretation, though. They outright describe City as state-owned, and say it is a “sportswashing project”.
That is a phrase that is disputed by many supporters and even people within football. Others would argue this entire scene was the greatest example of sportswashing possible, right down to how it was concluded with a £40m player scoring a brilliant goal to win the game. That, in very direct terms, is why they sign the owner’s name.
This project has afforded the club 15 years of investment that has now put them close to the pinnacle of European football. It is one major reason they have now so outstripped Bayern, to the point they are a better-resourced club who can destroy them 3-0.
It was why this entire night said so much, and it was more than the performance that was a statement.
