Bayern Munich edged Benfica in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie on Tuesday, claiming a 1-0 win at the Allianz Arena.

Arturo Vidal’s headed goal just 110 seconds into the game put the Bavarian giants on the board, and that proved to be enough for the hosts.

It wasn’t the kind of performance that has come to characterize Bayern. Per UEFA.com, they “only” took 13 attempts on goal, their chances following the opener being scarce and few. They looked entirely in control for almost the entire game, yet they seemed to only have limited interest in scoring again.

Perhaps the opener came too early, taking away a bit of the hunger to score before Bayern had built momentum.

In any case, Thiago Alcantara wasn’t the defense-splitting playmaker he’s been known to be, Douglas Costa continued to be the Costa of this spring rather than that of last fall, and Thomas Muller and Robert Lewandowski just lacked sharpness: The former was denied from close range by a great save in the first half, and the latter badly overweighted his pass to Philipp Lahm at the death with the goal open. 

Vidal was magnificent not only for his goal, but he and Juan Bernat were the only Bayern players to really shine.

From Bayern’s perspective, there are two ways to look at Tuesday’s result.

Through a lens looking at the results of previous seasons, Bayern are actually in real danger of being eliminated in the second leg. Pep Guardiola’s away record in the Champions League is quite poor for a manager of his reputation, and their 3-1 loss away to FC Porto in last season’s quarter-finals is a result that would put them out of this year’s competition.

The difference is that last season, Bayern managed to turn around lackluster first-leg displays in the round of 16 and quarter-finals with dominant wins in the home legs (7-0 against Shakhtar Donetsk and 6-1 against Porto).

The home leg against Benfica has already been played. And although 1-0 is a great result that many teams would be delighted to earn, the tie is far from over. Like the 1-0 win Louis van Gaal’s Bayern earned against Inter Milan in the first leg of the 2011 last-16 tie, a seemingly outstanding result might not be enough.

The other lens to look through is that the 1-0 result has put Bayern in the driver’s seat, leaving Benfica with the onus to score in the second leg. With the Portuguese side forced to chase a better result, the Bundesliga champions have them right where they want.

True, Bayern weren’t exactly at their best on Tuesday. But with this team, one gets the impression that they can turn up the heat when they want.

It wasn’t needed on Tuesday, with Vidal scoring inside two minutes. Yet even if the visitors had drawn level or even taken the lead (Jonas had a golden opportunity on 57 minutes, and shortly thereafter the Portuguese side saw a trio of gilt-edged opportunities go begging), Bayern have proved to be capable of turning the result around. If not by full-time of the first leg, then by the end of the second. Their late comeback against Juventus proved they can do just about anything if they truly want to.

Accordingly, if Benfica manage to score first in Lisbon and draw level on aggregate, that may not help them much: Bayern can just play a bit more aggressively and fight a bit harder to create chances on goal.

Muller and/or Lewandowski will find their chances, and in all likelihood, the German club will get the goals they need to progress. For a team to beat Bayern, they need to be not only better than Benfica, but they need to get a much better first-leg result. Or that’s how it seems nowadays.

Relying on individual magic as Bayern did against Juve is a dangerous game, of course, and at some point it may well fail. Still, that may not even be necessary in this tie, with the Bavarians in a relatively commanding position.

Discounting a full-on implosion (which is yet possible), the Germans should progress to the semi-final stage.

 

@Mr_Bundesliga

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