Villarreal inflicted Bayern Munich’s first Champions League away defeat in nearly five years as they took a 1-0 lead in their quarter-final first leg at the Estadio de la Ceramica on Wednesday.
Arnaut Danjuma scored the game’s only goal after just eight minutes when he returned a shot from Dani Parejo past Manuel Neuer.
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A top side for most of the game, particularly in the first half, Villarreal regretted not adding to their advantage ahead of next week’s decisive second leg in Munich.
“Our team is very hungry and humble,” man of the match Giovani Lo Celso told Movistar Plus. “But we’ve come up against one of the best teams in the world and we come away feeling like we should have scored several more goals.
“We knew we had to shorten the pitch for them – they are a team that cannot have spaces to work the ball. We played our game, we are a team that always tries to be the protagonist and we we had a lot of opportunities to win by a bigger margin.”
And even Bayern conceded the result could have been worse for them.
“We deserved to lose. We weren’t good today,” Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann told DAZN.
“In the first half we lacked power in defense and we didn’t create chances. The second half was a completely wild game. We lost control because we were desperate to score, but we could have conceded at least two more.”
Still, Villarreal’s win on Tuesday is a feat in itself against a club that hadn’t lost on the road in the Champions League for a record 22 games, dating back to a loss to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017.
Incredibly, the PSG coach that day was current Villarreal boss Unai Emery. And the Spaniard deserves huge credit for helping to organize the surprise of the German champions.
Bayern, leaders of the Bundesliga track in search of a seventh Champions League title, had a huge advantage in form and European pedigree against the seventh-placed Spanish side while playing in Europe’s top competition for the fourth. times only.
But Bayern struggled to cope with Villarreal’s compact form, counterattack and intensity on both sides of the ball.
Villarreal twice came close to adding to their lead, first when VAR ruled Francis Coquelin was just offside before his cross drifted into the back of Neuer’s net, then when Gerard Moreno smashed in a shot from 25 yards against the bottom of the post in Game Two.
But, having beaten Juventus in the previous round, Villarreal now have another European giant in their sights.
“We know it will be a completely different game in Germany,” captain Parejo told reporters.
“We had at least five chances to score, they didn’t create a single one. That says a lot about what we are capable of. So we will go out there and compete with the same passion.”
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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