“You are ruining our sport,” shouted the fans of FC Bayern when referee Felix Zwayer rushed to the monitor in the 76th minute to examine a possible handball that could be punished. Her fundamental no to the video evidence did not prevent her from bursting into jubilation a minute later when Zwayer indicated the penalty kick. Something like that is called dialectic. Robert Lewandowski didn’t care and did his job.
After his typical start with about seven rhythm and tense changes, he completed his work with the shot to 3-2. Goalkeeper Gregor Kobel had foreseen the corner and was close to the ball with his hands – he was still unable to prevent the goal that decided the top game between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern.
So everything as always, you might think, when it comes down to it, they are there, the Bavarians. But this wild, excited encounter in the pouring Westphalian rain could not be explained quite so simply. Bayern won the game, which was more Old English than High German, not necessarily because they were better – which was the case, by the way – but because their opponents wanted a better result with mistakes like in the ABC school of football had brought.
The mishaps of Mats Hummels were the most momentous of that evening
Mats Hummels in particular will certainly not forget this evening. The defense chief wasn’t the only breakdown producer on his team, but his breakdowns were the most momentous. He was involved with every Munich goal with his extremities. At 1: 1 and (unfortunately) at 1: 2 with your feet, at 2: 3 with your hand. Long after the final whistle, he did not want to believe that the penalty decision was justified. But even after a five-minute debate, Zwayer refused to revise the verdict.
Not that this extremely energetic, but also extremely flawed game with the renewed Bayern leadership was already doomed. The rest of the season still had a lot to offer. Zwayer referred the BVB coach Marco Rose, who had already been warned, back into the scene because of continued tirades about the penalty decision with the red card. Jude Bellingham knocked over the listed Manuel Neuer deliberately and without consideration and did not regret it (yellow card), and Corentin Tolisso managed to shoot several meters past the empty goal after BVB keeper Kobel had made one last desperate excursion and no longer in time found in his penalty area.
BVB also had chances to equalize, but Bellingham and the substitute Donyell Malen were unable to use them. Zwayer had granted ten minutes of stoppage time, partly because Julian Brandt fell to the ground with a bleeding laceration on his head after a collision with Dayot Upamecano and had to be carried off the field.
Referee Felix Zwayer looks in the review area at the scene before the penalty that made it 3-2.
(Photo: Bernd Thissen / dpa)
There was a lot of ambition and a lot of poison in the game that BVB had started promisingly. Brandt scored the 1-0 in the sixth minute, cheered by 15,000 visitors (minus 500 Bayern supporters) who made noise like the 80,000 guests who were usual in the good old days. But Lewandowski gave the typical Bavarian answer just three minutes later, a sequence of scenes that illustrated the character of the game.
On both sides creative attack lines whirled, while in return two confused defensive departments invited to the offensive, the result was a game without midfield breaks, in which one chance chased the other. The fact that BVB had an even more unstable defense should take revenge shortly before the break, just as the hectic hustle and bustle had calmed down a bit.
BVB has the even more unstable defense
Full-back Guerrero got deep in the penalty area to the ball and tries to get rid of it, frantically like a child playing Stadtpark, with a break. From Hummels, who was involuntarily in the way, the stray ball got to Kingsley Coman, who hit the goal with the help of Marco Reus, who slipped in between.
This double and triple unfortunate goal evoked skeptical prophecies for the second half at the supply stations in the stadium, ‘but the pessimists had made the calculation without Erling Haaland. Immediately after the break, the Norwegian, who repeatedly fought highly physical duels with Upamecano, equalized – with a precision flick, which should be good for the candidacy for his third goal of the month. After that, the game calmed down a bit, both sides tried to control themselves, the defensive rows stabilized. Maybe they would have come to terms with the draw, but then there was a corner kick for Bayern and Hummels stretched out his arm.