Lazio 1-0 Bayern Munich: Player ratings as Champions League defeat adds to Tuchel pressure
Bayern Munich have work to do if they are to progress to this season’s Champions League quarter-finals after slumping to a 1-0 defeat to Lazio in their last 16 first leg on Wednesday.
Ciro Immobile’s second half penalty proved to be the difference at Stadio Olimpico on an historic night for the Italian side in Europe. Bayern finished the game with ten players after Dayot Upamecano had been dismissed for his foul that conceded the spot-kick.
Thomas Tuchel’s team dominated possession and mustered 17 shots in total over the course of the game, yet failed to get a single one on target, while Maurizio Sarri’s Lazio worked incredibly hard off the ball to limit the impact of Bayern’s array of glittering attacking talent.
Although not a disastrous result in the overall context of this tie, it certainly wasn’t the way that Bayern or an under pressure Tuchel would have wanted to respond to last weekend’s comprehensive 3-0 defeat to Bundesliga title rivals Bayer Leverkusen.
Bayern went close a couple of times early on when, first, Joshua Kimmich curled wide from the edge of the box and then Harry Kane scooped over from close range a chance he would have been expected to bury after Thomas Muller’s knockdown. But Lazio were doing well overall to keep the Bavarian giants at arm’s length and otherwise limiting clear sights of goal.
Despite dominating the ball and the tempo of the game, Bayern found the door was repeatedly shut in their face as the first half progressed, with moves either breaking down at the edge of the box or pot shots from distance missing the target altogether.
Lazio were doing a solid containment job, particularly strangling the service to Harry Kane. Bayern chances did still creep in – they just couldn’t take them.
Read on 90min.com
