Manchester City took a huge stride towards the Champions League semi-finals with a 3-0 win over Pep Guardiola’s former club Bayern Munich in Tuesday’s last-eight first leg.
An intense Etihad Stadium encounter pitted Guardiola against Bayern for the first time since leaving Germany, and he comfortably got the better of old foe Thomas Tuchel, whose Chelsea beat City in the 2021 final.
Rodri’s spectacular first Champions League strike gave City the edge at half-time, before Bernardo Silva added the second as pressure ramped up on the Bayern goal heading into the final 20 minutes, and Erling Haaland’s 45th goal of the season – an outright record for a Premier League player – soon followed.
Guardiola and City have let slip all manner of leads in this competition against weaker opposition than Bayern, but they were rampant by full-time and head into the return match with full command of the tie.
Both Dayot Upamecano and Sommer failed to deal with a cross from the City right, with the goalkeeper merely helping it into the path of Ilkay Gundogan but responding with an instinctive save.
Although Leroy Sane led a response as his shot wide before half-time was followed by three on target following the restart – the best of them drawing a low stop from Ederson – the mix-ups in the Bayern back line only increased in number as the match wore on.
Sommer saved from Nathan Ake and Ruben Dias in quick succession but failed to get enough on Silva’s header after Upamecano had gifted the ball to Jack Grealish to set in motion the City attack.
Another stop from Julian Alvarez looked to have kept Bayern in the tie, yet Haaland got his goal from a John Stones knockdown to leave the Bundesliga giants an almighty task back in Germany.
