Bayern triumph, sensation in Manchester and zeros in Barcelona: how they fight for titles in the top European championships

Drama Aguero

Manchester City on Saturday had an excellent opportunity to become the champion of England for the seventh time. To do this, Josep Guardiola's charges had to beat Chelsea at home. The last time the teams met was quite recently - in mid-April. Then the Londoners in the FA Cup semi-finals prevailed with a minimum score. And at the end of May, the paths of the rivals will cross again already in the decisive confrontation of the Champions League. During the week, the townspeople were stronger than PSG, and the blue ones were stronger than Real Madrid.

Tough European Cup matches had a significant impact on the actions of the players. On "Etihad" they did not demonstrate their proprietary speeds and made unusually many mistakes. One of them led to a goal by Raheem Sterling at the end of the first half. Gabriel Jesus easily pushed Andres Christensen away from the ball and made a cross to the far post. In addition, the Dane was injured in this episode and had to ask for a replacement.

And in the time added by the referee, Manchester City had an excellent opportunity to put an end to this confrontation and guarantee itself the victory of the trophy.

19-year-old Billy Gilmore lost his nerves and broke the rules in his own penalty area.

The most experienced Sergio Aguero, whose name is associated with all the main successes of the team, came to the "point".

At the end of the season, the Argentine will probably leave Foggy Albion.

According to media reports, he may move to Barcelona.

It would be nice if the legend of the club, which now does not get too much playing time and complains that partners do not share the ball with him, put a “golden” point.

But the 32-year-old striker smeared it.

Aguero decided to shoot a panenka right in the center of the goal, and Eduard Mendy calmly caught the shell.

After the match, Tuchel directly admitted: if Sergio had realized the penalty kick, his players would have no chances.

And so in the second half, they made an impressive comeback.

In the 63rd minute, Hakim Ziyech leveled the score with a shot from the penalty line, and shortly before the final whistle, Marcos Alonso brought a strong-willed victory to Chelsea.

So the Londoners beat Manchester City for the second time in three weeks and postponed their championship.

However, no one doubts for a long time that sooner or later they will take the title.

But now Guardiola's team has a double motivation for the Champions League final.

Aguero, after the end of the unfortunate match for himself, published a post on Twitter with an apology to the team and fans.

The Argentinean admitted that, having tried to execute the penalty with a panenka at such a crucial moment, he had made a bad decision. 

I would like to apologize to my teammates, staff and supporters for missing the penalty.

It was a bad decision and I take full responsibility.

- Sergio Kun Aguero (@aguerosergiokun) May 8, 2021

Magic Lewandowski

But Bayern have guaranteed themselves gold medals two rounds before the end of the season.

In the case of the Munich people, there was no drama.

They entered the field, already knowing that they had become unattainable, as their main pursuer Leipzig lost to Borussia Dortmund 2: 3 on the road.

The yellow-blacks are fighting a fierce struggle to get into the Champions League next season, and therefore the fifth victory in a row in the national championship turned out to be in their hands.

The match developed according to a completely unpredictable scenario. Edin Terzic's wards opened the scoring already in the seventh minute, and at the beginning of the second half they doubled their advantage. But instead of calmly "dry up" the game, the hosts allowed Lucas Klosterman and Daniel Olmo to excel. However, in the 87th minute, Jadon Sancho, who made a double, brought the victory to Dortmund.

The defeat of the main rival did not affect the mood of Bayern. Hans-Dieter Flick's charges scored six unanswered goals against Borussia Mönchengladbach. The main hero of the confrontation was Robert Lewandowski, who scored a hat-trick. The performance of the Pole in the current season of the Bundesliga amazes in an amicable way, because he already has 39 goals in 27 matches. Moreover, the striker surpassed the 200-goal mark for Bayern in the German championship (201) and scored his earliest career goal in the second minute.

For the ninth time in a row, Bayern became the champion of Germany and repeated the record of Juventus for the length of the golden series in the top 5 leading leagues in Europe.

And Flick, who will soon lead the German national team, won the seventh trophy with the club.

But the specialist is not even close to some of his wards.

So, Thomas Müller and David Alaba won the Bundesliga for the tenth anniversary time, this is a new record.

And Kingsley Coman, by the age of 24, won the 21st trophy.

He also has a total of ten championship titles in Germany (6), Italy (2) and France (2).

Saves Clouds and Ter Stegen

If in Germany the intrigue in the fight for the championship actually died a long time ago, in Spain it only started spinning with renewed vigor.

In many ways, the key match for the gold medals on Saturday took place at the Camp Nou, where Barcelona hosted Atlético.

The layouts in it were extremely simple.

The hosts, in case of victory, became the leader, while the guests went five-point ahead of the competitor and, probably, knocked him out of the number of candidates for the title.

The draw went into the hands of Real Madrid, which in the event of its own victory over Sevilla got the opportunity to rise to the first place, since it has an advantage over Diego Simeone's charges in personal meetings (2: 0, 1: 1).

As a result, the match went according to the last scenario.

The rivals were eager to hit each other's goal and, in general, created many dangerous moments, but they could not open an account.

Jan Oblak has seven saves, Marc-André ter Stegen has six.

In the first half, the guests were closer to the goal, although the Catalans, as expected, had more possession of the ball.

However, Madrid missed several great chances at once.

In particular, the goalkeeper twice rescued the team after strikes by Yannick Carrasco from close range.

In addition, Barcelona were left without Sergio Busquets, who suffered a jaw injury.

As a result, the hosts created only one moment before the break.

Lionel Messi picked up the ball on the right flank, beat several defenders along the way and shot from the penalty line into the near corner.

Atletico was rescued by the Cloud.

But in the second half of the meeting, the blue garnet looked more interesting.

In many ways, successful substitutions from the coaching staff helped them regain the advantage.

But this time a little luck was not enough for the team of Ronald Koeman.

With Messi's shot from a free-kick, Oblak managed.

Gerard Piquet's shot after filing the standard turned out to be a little inaccurate.

And the referee canceled the goal of Ronald Araujo because of an offside position.

Thus, for the first time in 18 seasons, the Catalans failed to beat either Real (1: 3, 1: 2) or Atlético (0: 1, 0: 0).

And Messi in these matches did not score a single point for performance.

By the way, in the reporting meeting, the rivals held him back, as they could, and committed nine fouls at once on the Argentine.

This is a new record for Lionel in La Liga.

On Sunday, Real Madrid will rise to the top spot in the event of a victory over Sevilla, and will most likely leave their opponents without medals. In this case, the team's lag from the top three three rounds before the finish will increase to five points.