Bayern Munich vs Manchester City 2nd leg preview: Can the Bavarians turn it around?

Guardiola"s side, Manchester City, ran riot last time out in the Champions League, posting a 3-0 win over the Bavarians, a tie which left their opponents scathed and it"s the Citizens to lose come the second leg in Munich on April 19.
The three-goal display from the defending EPL Champions tarnished Bayern"s 100% record in the Champions League season and it infact ended in a really miserable manner.

Goals from Rodri, Bernardo Silva and Erling Haaland put so much trouble on Thomas Tuchel"s men who are currently in the midst of a quagmire. For Manchester City, it was an opportunistic display and a message to the rest of the still-active Champions League participants while for Tuchel and Bayern Munich it was an horrid night, an encounter to forget. The Bavarians were thumped mercilessly, the defence experiencing a couple of nightmares.

Bayern Munich vs Manchester City:

Thomas Tuchel on second leg:

“It"s a huge mountain. You will not trick me into saying that it"s too big but it"s big"

We will try, i mean it"s football, it"s a home match, it"s a German team, we will never give up until the shower is warm after the match"

“That will be the challenge. To focus on the things that we did good"
“It"s a huge task now to turn this around but we will not give up. We are realistic but we will not give up".

Bayern Munich vs Manchester City:

Nagelsmann sacking revisited

It"s no news that the Bundesliga giants are in a conundrum this season. Bayern Munich started the season extremely strong, recording twenty three wins, seven draws and a single loss(a 1-0 loss to Ausburg) in their first 31 fixtures.

However since February, the Bavarians have been defeated four times, the second of which resulted in Nagelsmann"s dismissal of the club.
But with the advent of Thomas Tuchel at the Allianz Arena, it appears things have not changed for the better. The former Chelsea manager has won twice, drawn twice and lost once in five fixtures. Since Tuchel took over, the Bavarians have gotten knocked out of the DFB Pokal competition, are one foot out of the Champions League and have got Dortmund tailing them at the Bundesliga summit.

Perhaps it was indeed a wrong decision to kick the 35 year-old out of the club just when he had the smallest of problems. The skiing incident appears to be a cover-up to a bigger problem underneath and it"s evident Bayern dismissed the German for more intentional reasons than just ‘taking a vacation".

Key stats:

• Thomas Tuchel has lost two games in the past fifteen days, as many games as Julian Nagelsmann lost in 30 weeks this season.

• Erling Haaland has netted fourteen goals in his past six games in all competitions for Manchester City.

• The Manchester City forward has scored sixteen out of his last 21 shots.

• Bayern Munich"s Champions League title pursuits have culminated at the quarter-final stage in the past two seasons(against PSG in 2021 and against Villarreal in 2022) where they currently have a three-goal deficit heading into the second leg on Tuesday.
• City have not tasted defeat in an away Champions League quarter-final fixture since 2019 when they lost 1-0 to Tottenham Hotspur

• Bayern Munich need four unreplied goals to make the semis or three to push for extra time.
• The Bavarians have won just two out of their last six games, losing two and drawing one.
• The last team to turn around a three-goal deficit in the Champions League was Liverpool against Barcelona in 2019.
• Manchester City have won their last ten games across all tournaments. On the overall, Guardiola"s side remain unbeaten in fourteen fixtures.

Bayern vs Manchester City:

Are Manchester City through to the semis already?

Pep Guardiola:

“They"re a really good team but we"re going to deal with the mentality, to play and to try to win the game"

Oliver Kahn:

“Yes, it doesn"t look good. I"ve experienced the unbelievable in football, experienced a lot, and we also have an obligation to throw everything at the second leg, try everything, and show our fans here, in Munich, around the world, that we"re not too disappointed, we won"t give up, we"ll try to give everything in the second leg."

Unarguably, the Citizens have a commanding position in claiming the semi-final berth over their German counterparts but Bayern may still be hanging by a tiny thread. It"s really hard to see Thomas Tuchel"s side putting four past an invincible City (a side that has been stopping at nothing in the past couple of weeks) especially with the nasty backstories brewing up in the Germans" camp lately.

Bayern currently look their worst of this season. They"ve accrued a meagre 59 points in 28 games in the Bundesliga were they face threats of a Borussia Dortmund overthrow. The reason Edin Terzic"s men haven"t taken over at the top of the table is the fact that they"ve been sloppy themselves. Bayern were knocked out of the DFB Pokal by Freiburg in a 2-1 loss two weeks ago, their season"s ‘gone" from bad to worse under Tuchel, a Mane-Sane saga definitely doesn"t help matters when the team has got to put their back in for a daunting task on Wednesday evening.

Manchester City are high-flyers, unstoppable at the moment. They"d take Arsenal down any moment. Guardiola"s side are firing on all cylinders with so much consistency across all competitions and the perseverance and unrelenting energy exuded by the squad is so commendable given the Spanish tactician doesn"t commit so much to squad rotation.

It cannot be said that City would conquer on the night in Munich but it really is an Herculean task for the Bavarians to keep the English side at bay throughout the match. A single goal from City would make Bayern"s already precarious situation and arduous task all the more difficult. It definitely is City"s to lose.

Main image credit Embed from Getty Images