It wasn’t brilliant, but FC Bayern stays in the “flow”. With a tough 2-0 (1-0) against Inter Milan, Munich ended the preliminary round of the Champions League with the maximum score of 18 points and set a record.
The German record champions were the first team to win all six group games in the premier class for the third time, having previously done so in the past two years.
The good Benjamin Pavard (32′) and, of course, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting (72′) scored the well-deserved prestige victory against the Italian champions, who also qualified for the knockout stage.
Despite a starting lineup that changed to five positions and numerous changes, coach Julian Nagelsmann’s team extended their record streak to 34 group games without defeat.
“It’s been going great in the last few weeks,” said Choupo-Moting on “Prime Video” and called his goal “a great goal”. Despite the changes in the team, “we wanted to show that we have enough quality on the pitch that we can beat anyone”.
Getting six wins in six games is “something special, especially in such a strong group”. Afterwards, the team let the fans celebrate.
Group victory of FC Bayern already perfect
At the beginning of the knockout round in February, Munich will initially meet a group runners-up away from home, but not a Bundesliga competitor. Bayern were already the group winners after beating FC Barcelona 3-0 last week and qualifying for the round of 16 after beating Viktoria Pilsen (4-2) on matchday four.
Inter with national player Robin Gosens, who remained pale like his colleagues, had already qualified for the round of 16 as a group runner-up – but Bayern CEO Oliver Kahn had previously denied that it was no longer a matter of that. “It won’t be a comfortable friendly, there’s far too much prestige at stake,” he said. And Joshua Kimmich had also emphasized: “We want to win the game to send a sign.”
In fact, the encounter began with a few excitement: first goalkeeper Sven Ulreich parried a shot from Nicolo Barella brilliantly (7th). Then Munich were lucky that referee Ivan Kruzliak (Slovakia) did not punish a “protective hand” by Sadio Mane in the penalty area after another powerful shot by Barella after extensive video study (10th).
Leadership for Bayern initially surprising
As announced, Nagelsmann had made major changes to his team – that was not conducive to the flow of the game. Bayern’s 1-B team was slow to gain momentum. Inter, currently only fifth in the league, attacked early and aggressively, initially dominated the game and could have taken the lead through captain Lautaro Martinez (27′).
The Munich lead was all the more surprising: Pavard hit his head after a corner kick from Kimmich.
Bayern’s game didn’t get much better after that. There was a problem in the build-up, the offensive actions seemed poorly thought out, shots on goal were a rarity. It became dangerous for Inter just before the break when Coman failed with a powerful shot by goalkeeper Andre Onana (45 + 3).
What followed were largely futile efforts to get dangerously in front of the goal of the consistently defending Milan – until Choupo-Moting scored with a powerful shot from 18 meters.