Bayern Munich stumbled to a 3-1 loss at VfB Stuttgart ahead of their all-important, season defining second leg of the Champions League semi-finals at Real Madrid. In full context, this was always going to be a tricky match for Thomas Tuchel and Bayern to navigate given how much rides on the next match against Real Madrid, but they still should have been able to fare far better against this season’s surprise package in the Bundesliga. Stuttgart went from a club surviving relegation to getting a Champions League spit; a truly incredible feat to have reached for Sebastian Hoeness.
It looked like Bayern were going to have some fight and perhaps turn the match around when Harry Kane equalized things at 1-1 with his 37th minute penalty that cancelled out Leonidis Stergiou’s 29th minute goal. Tuchel was forced to take off both Raphaël Guerreiro and Eric Dier due to injuries after he had already made several changes to the starting lineup from the side that drew Madrid 2-2 just a few days ago. Two late goals from Woo-yeong Jong and Silas rubbed salt into the open wound for Bayern, capping out what was an underwhelming performance in rather difficult circumstances.
Speaking after the match, Serge Gnabry felt that his side always knew how tricky and difficult of a test Stuttgart was going to be in between the two ties against Real Madrid. For him, Bayern did not start turning the gears enough until it was too late. “We knew it wouldn’t be easy. In my opinion, we did quite well until the last 15 minutes, when we conceded two goals. But before that, we can also turn the game around,” he explained (via tz).
From the offset, Gnabry explained that part of Bayern’s strategy against Stuttgart was to sit in deep blocks and wait for their chances to get forward, which they did not exactly execute to great effect for large portions of proceedings. “We tried to stand together in the block. And I think we did that well for long stretches of the game,” he said, while adding that he felt the penalty decision he won off of Stuttgart’s Waldemar Anton was 100% right. “[Anton’s arm] it clearly hits me in the eye. I don’t go to the ground for no reason and I felt the contact,” he said in his justification for having gone down in the area.
Looking ahead, Gnabry knows Bayern has to make the most of their chances against Real Madrid if they want to have a chance of progressing to the Champions League final at Wembley. He feels they were perhaps a bit too wasteful in front of goal overall in the first leg. “We have to create our chances – and then kill them. In the first leg, we could have scored one or two more goals. Maybe we need to do better,” he implored.
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