PreviousLive Chronicle
Unai Emery 's
catenaccio
exposed the miseries of Bayern, the most regular team in the Champions League in the last decade, undone by an internal crisis that first deprived him of enthusiasm and then led him to the most unexpected elimination.
Villarreal will attend the semifinals, exponent of the touch progressively transformed into a bolt machine.
This team is worthy of the best Trappatoni.
The work culminated, as is de rigueur, in a backlash.
Gerard Moreno performed it with some master dance steps in the art of not falling offside.
His pass left Chukwueze alone, who made it 1-1 with two minutes remaining.
As if two years had passed.
This Bayern had already made a mummy face.
BAYBayern
one
Neuer, Lucas (Alphonso Davies, min. 86), Benjamin Pavard, Dayotchanculle Upamecano, Leon Goretzka, Joshua Kimmich, Jamal Musiala (Gnabry, min. 81), Müller (Choupo-Moting, min. 89), Lewandowski, Kingsley Coman and Heal
VLL Villarreal
one
Rulli, Pau Torres, Juan Foyth, Albiol, Estupiñán, Capoue, Parejo (Aurier, min. 92), Giovani Lo Celso, Coquelin (Chukwueze, min. 83), Arnaut Danjuma (Alfonso Pedraza, min. 84) and Gerard Moreno
Goals
1-0 min.
51: Lewandowski.
1-1 min.
87: Chukwueze.
Referee
Slavko Vincic
Yellow cards Lewandowski (min. 32), Juan Foyth (min. 58) and Giovani Lo Celso (min. 90)
The Allianz Arena registered the second full after the pandemic.
When the teams took the field, the stands paid tribute to
Torpedo
Müller as if practicing a libation for the divinity of the goal, and the Villarreal players formed a circle in the middle of the field.
Embraced, with their heads huddled together, for a few seconds they staged the spiritual fort.
The referee put the ball into play and the first thing they did was form an absorption block ten meters from their area.
Not a minute passed and everyone except Danjuma fell back to the quadrant 16 meters above the goal line.
They stayed that way, basically, until the break.
Without the need for the central defenders to intervene in more than five direct actions to avoid shots, without receiving more than a header, the work of Mussiala, at the hands of Rulli.
Villarreal remained locked up without setbacks because the rival that besieged them was the saddest Bayern in memory.
The first play of the match was a cross from Sané to the stands.
The second was another cross from Sané that caught Lewandowski offside, something unusual given the lack of space, revealing the rigidity of the Polish striker and the predictability of the maneuver, reproduced with regular monotony.
Bayern needed a massive and suffocating attack.
All he produced during the first half were centers with more or less languid variations from the feet of Sané and Coman, arranged as lanes in a scheme with three defenders, Kimmich and Goretzka in the middle, Müller and Mussiala between the lines, and Lewandowski in the vertex.
Not even on its best days was this Bayern a refined team.
But it never stopped delivering dependable harvest tractor performance.
The first shot corresponded to Gerard Moreno and it went wide.
It was a revealing symptom of the state of perplexity in which the Bavarian team has been living in recent weeks, distracted by internal conflicts that point to a project to regenerate the squad.
Neither the players feel loved nor does the club show them much appreciation in a crisis in which, for now, Julian Nagelsmann, the coach, has come out stronger.
The problem of coexistence impregnated the local team in each of the attacks that they practiced until the break, under the direction of a Kimmich who looked but did not see, from passing balls to marked teammates so much.
Bayern showed signs of frustration and Villarreal did nothing but look for Moreno with long passes that Upamecano and Lucas almost invariably beat.
The resistance exercise was as poor as his opponent's attack in a climate that turned soporific.
On the flank Emery asked for calm with his hands, as if the match had not entered a phase of paralysis.
Villarreal spent more than ten minutes in their area and to which they linked two consecutive passes, Danjuma was left alone against Neuer.
But the shot from the winger went wide, evidence of the mental state in which Danjuma lived, cold as a marble from so little coming into play, deranged by dint of throwing unchecks in the desert.
“Yes, we can!” sang the expedition of visiting fans, excited by Danjuma's chance.
People were thrilled with how little they were offered.
After the break, Bayern barely accelerated.
Some spirited unchecks were seen, players who asked for the ball between the lines, the bare minimum.
It was enough for Lewandowski to get a ball when he was prowling the balcony of the area.
Standing on his back, he turned and executed the specific kind of operation that has made him a celebrity: he put the ball between Albiol and Pau Torres, who were so suffocated that they were going to make explosive movements in five meters, they were not enough to close the gap.
The shot hit the post and went in to the roar of the crowd, who broke into screams after falling into stunned silence.
You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on
and
, or sign up here to receive
our weekly newsletter
.