On Wednesday afternoon, Giuseppe Bergomi, the 1982 Italian world champion, sat near the port of Castelló in the “Tasca del Puerto” over a fantastic rice dish. A few hours were still missing until the start of FC Bayern’s game at FC Villarreal. And the legendary Inter Milan defender was there recounting a previous trip to the area, just a few months ago. Villarreal met Atalanta Bergamo in the group stage and at that time a conviction grew in him day by day: “Villarreal’s coach Unai Emery belongs in the Italian Serie A!” Because he, and that’s where the rather bad news for FC Bayern begins, knows how to tactically be fantastic. And that’s how it happened on Wednesday evening: His team won 1-0 against FC Bayern through a goal by Arnaut Danjuma in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals.
“We deserve that we lost,” said Julian Nagelsmann at Dazn and complained: “We had little power in defense in the first half, in the second it was wild. That wasn’t a good game from us. At some point it became hara-kiri. We lost the ball slightly. There were two or three things left.” And Thomas Müller added: “We’ll take this 1-0 win with us. It could have gone higher. We couldn’t deliver the game we wanted today. We didn’t have the power offensively, the number of chances we created.”
Villarreal’s club patron Fernando Roig has made a billion fortune from tiles. Around the Estadio de La Cerámica there are gigantic factories where the ovens run “24/7”, as the saying goes: it is cheaper to pay night shifts than to switch the ovens on again after they have been switched off. The pros of FC Villarreal live far from these places of constant toil. They live in chalets on the coast, overlooking the sea. In Benicàssim, for example. But what they did against FC Bayern on Wednesday was a bit of a homage to the place where they go to work.
There was little that graced Villarreal’s game. But this: the astonishing organization, which mainly revolved around the idea of reaching the second leg alive. At the very beginning of the game it seemed that Bayern had discovered an oil field with Kingsley Coman on the right wing in attack. But once Villarreal’s Ecuadorian left-back, who goes by the spectacular name of Pervis Estupiñán, found his bearings, that was all over. Basically, to anticipate that, Bayern didn’t have a serious chance to score in the whole first half. As I said, there was a homage to the tile: With four short, fast, direct passes in an area that was hardly larger than a few tiles, Villarreal levered out the entire defensive Bayern in the 8th minute.
On the right, Gerard Moreno saw Giovani Lo Celso pull out Bayern centre-back Lucas Hernández. Lo Celso served director Dani Parejo, who fired directly and sent goalkeeper Manuel Neuer in the wrong direction. Striker Arnaut Danjuma deflected the shot into the goal for a 1-0 lead. The fact that this was still the case at half-time was because Francis Coquelin was offside before a cross slipped and landed in a high arc in Neuer’s goal.
For comparison: Bayern’s first shot, the onto Goal went, bore the signature of Alphonso Davies – and only happened in the 66th minute. Before that, FC Bayern had to overcome two shocking situations: A powerful shot from 17 meters by Gerard Moreno at the base of the left post (53′). And another shot from Moreno, which was due to a slip by Bayern goalkeeper Neuer. On a trip to the center circle, he played the ball into Moreno’s feet – but the Spaniard missed the target from sixty meters (63′).
Shortly thereafter, Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann reacted. He replaced Thomas Müller and brought in Leon Goretzka, who gave the previously mostly sterile attacking efforts more aggressiveness. The fact that these were so fruitless was due to the fascinating defensive strategy of the Spaniards. They always managed to populate their penalty area with a high level of strategic intelligence in such a way that it was impossible to get through. Again and again, all available yellow men grouped around the edgy central defenders Pau Torres and Raúl Albiol, who drained Bayern’s goalkeeper Robert Lewandowski. Argentina right-back Juan Foyth did the same with Davies and Serge Gnabry. He neutralized Bayern’s left flank until shortly before the end, convulsed, he had to give up.
But there was good news for Bayern: the result could (or should) have been far worse. The possibility of turning it around next week in the second leg in the Munich Arena is extremely realistic, it doesn’t even have to be a 7-1 win like against Salzburg. But FC Bayern has lost its immaculateness. He has been the only undefeated team in the current Champions League season for the longest time. Because of a defeat at FC Villarreal, which they call the yellow submarine because of the yellow club color and the famous Beatles song, “Yellow Submarine”. The chances of a visit to Liverpool have not gotten any worse.