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Normal service has been resumed in Germany. Perhaps it has in the Champions League, too, given Bayern Munich are in the quarter-finals for a sixth successive year. If Inter are treated with the same brutality they inflicted upon Bayer Leverkusen, whose brief spell as domestic kryptonite appears comprehensively over, they may move closer to lifting the trophy on home soil in May.
This may not have been as sedate as the walking pace at which Harry Kane nudged the opener but, in truth, it was not far off. Bayern never looked like losing even a fraction of the three-goal lead amassed in the first leg and could count once again on the England captain, whose presence on their scoresheet does not seem such a luxury any more.
Something feels different this season and, in setting up Alphonso Davies for an emphatic second, he proved again that his efforts form part of a coherent whole nowadays. Vincent Kompany’s side are purring and any predictions that this tie would confirm a longer-term shift in the Bundesliga’s traditional power balance have been made to look absurd.
Might Xabi Alonso come to wish he had quit while he was ahead? That may be a dramatic reading but Leverkusen, having performed spectacularly to overhaul Bayern last year, may find it harder to check their momentum again now. The sweet spot appears to have long gone, although it would be remiss to ignore the fact Leverkusen outplayed Bayern here in the league a month ago. They did not score that day either, though, and have an eight-point gap to bridge domestically. Over the past week the gulf has looked startlingly vast.
This time Leverkusen could point to the absence of Florian Wirtz, whose next action in this competition will come wearing Bayern’s colours if his suitors have their way. The playmaker’s weekend injury meant that, to all intents and purposes, dreams of a comeback were over before they had taken hold. Leverkusen needed to show that the sum of their parts was bigger than the awesome talent watching from the stands, but Alonso always seemed hard pushed to devise a formula that could compensate.
Instead Kane could look towards a last-eight clash whose winners may be favoured to go the distance. “We showed what type of team we are,” he said, referring to their progress since grisly league phase results against Barcelona and Feyenoord. “We pressed high and with intensity. That’s what we wanted to come here and do. It’s never easy when you have a three-goal lead.”
It remains to be seen whether that aphorism catches on. Perhaps Kane could sympathise with the importance Leverkusen ascribe to Wirtz: after all, Pep Guardiola once named an entire Spurs team after him. Here Bayern looked much more like a collective even though, as usual, he was poised at the sharp end. Within 15 minutes of the start he could have scored twice, Lukas Hradecky clawing away from near the line and beating away a meatier strike from distance. The openings never quite dried up despite Leverkusen’s hyperactivity.
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Champions League: Inter power past Feyenoord
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Marcus Thuram (pictured) and Hakan Calhanoglu were on target as Inter defeated Feyenoord 2-1 in the second leg of their Champions League last-16 tie to advance comfortably into the quarter-finals with a 4-1 aggregate win.
Inter, the Serie A leaders, will face the Bundesliga table toppers Bayern Munich, who defeated Bayer Leverkusen 5-0 on aggregate, in the quarter-finals next month. The three-time winners Inter last lifted the trophy in 2010, beating Bayern in the final in a treble-winning season, and Inzaghi’s side are still on course to repeat that feat, with a Coppa Italia semi-final also to come in April.
Feyenoord came into the game with an uphill task after losing 2-0 at home last week, and by the eighth minute they were left with a mountain to climb following Thuram’s superb solo goal. Thuram, who also opened the scoring at De Kuip in the first leg, collected the ball on the left wing before cutting inside with some clever footwork before curling a shot into the far top corner.
Mehdi Taremi sent a shot straight at the keeper as Inter looked to put the tie even further out of reach but Feyenoord pulled one back three minutes before the break from the penalty spot.
Calhanoglu was penalised for a foul on Jakub Moder who picked himself up and sent his spot kick into the bottom corner to beat Yann Sommer, just the second goal Inter have conceded in this season’s competition, and the first at San Siro.
Any hope of a Feyenoord comeback all but ended when Calhanoglu made up for his mistake by converting his own penalty six minutes into the second half after Thomas Beelen fouled Taremi.
With Feyenoord taking risks in an effort to get something from the game, Inter were always dangerous on the counter and looked like they had another penalty but after a VAR check, Thuram was booked for simulation instead.
Thuram still received a standing ovation from the home crowd when replaced, having just struck a thunderous shot which bounced back off the underside of the crossbar, and Inter had little trouble seeing the game out. Reuters
The home side wore their desperation too clearly. Alonso had admitted that a dose of chaos, rather than the control he prefers, might be required but the effect was a jumpiness that wrought little. Passes pinged off knees and toes; footings were lost and bodies opened up prematurely. A formidable Bayern press, of the kind that had smothered them in Bavaria, abetted the confusion.
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Patrick Schick, selected as a battering ram to diversify their Wirtz-less attack, headed their best first-half chance wide. At one stage Alonso gestured for his players to compose themselves; to dispense with the one-touch stuff and make the ball work. They mustered squalls of pressure but the only poise on display oozed from Bayern’s cream jerseys, who marauded regularly and came close again through Michael Olise and Kingsley Coman.
At the break Alonso may have hung on to memories of Istanbul; of the heady, swirling, Technicolor night 20 years ago when he and Liverpool took victory from Milan’s clenched jaws. But soon enough Leverkusen needed four goals, not three. Kane’s 33rd of the season may have been his strangest, a straight Joshua Kimmich free-kick evading Schick and Kim Min-jae with Hradecky rooted. Kane could control and stroll it home; so much for fretting about the outcome.
Leverkusen flickered, Jonas Urbig saving from Jeremie Frimpong and Schick. But Bayern were long gone, Kane helping the ball on at the end of a slick right-sided move for Davies to sidefoot crisply on the bounce. There was plenty of time for Kane to miss when through and Jamal Musiala to strike the woodwork twice, but the statement had long since been made.
“I think the boys showed again today how hungry they are for what they want to achieve,” a clearly satisfied Vincent Kompany said. “We’ve won now, and I don’t want to get too carried away.” If the most dangerous foe is the one you know best, then others may be tempted to do that.
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