MANCHESTER, England — Manchester City are in control of their Champions League quarterfinal against Bayern Munich after a dominant 3-0 win at the Etihad Stadium.
Pep Guardiola’s team still have to finish the job against Thomas Tuchel’s Bayern next week but goals from Rodri, Bernardo Silva and Erling Haaland mean they already have one foot in the last four.
Rodri’s strike in the first half was a stunner while Haaland made a goal and scored one in the second half to reach 45 goals for the season, the most ever by a Premier League player in a single campaign.
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Rapid reaction
1. It had to be Rodri
Oh, the irony. It was Rodri’s exclusion from the City team for the 2021 Champions League final against Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea which dominated the build up to this tie, so of course it had to be the Spanish midfielder who smashed in the crucial first goal here.
It was a sublime strike, curled into the top corner with his left foot after Silva had toyed with a couple of Bayern defenders on the right, but also served as a reminder of that night in Portugal when he was surprisingly left out of the team and Chelsea clinched the Champions League title.
It remains a talking point two years on, so much so that Guardiola was asked to explain the decision at his news conference on Monday. He declined, and perhaps we’ll never know whether he regrets leaving Rodri on the bench against Tuchel’s Chelsea, but he’ll be happy he picked him against Tuchel’s Bayern.
If it’s a goal that ultimately helps City win the Champions League this season, the questions to Guardiola about past failures will finally stop. In a tie that pitted the two tournament favourites against each other, City are in pole position ahead of the second leg in Munich next week.
