FC Bayern vs. Manchester City: These races to catch up give hope

Oliver Kahn has experienced a lot in football. And that’s why the CEO of FC Bayern did not linger long on looking back shortly after the bitter 3-0 defeat against Manchester City in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. Instead, Kahn tried to project optimism.

“There is always a second leg,” the Bayern boss reminded the players at the banquet right after the first leg. “It doesn’t look so good, only: I’ve experienced incredible things in football. We have a duty to throw everything in again in this second leg, to try everything. To show our fans around the world that we don’t give up .” Our photo series with the most spectacular comebacks of German clubs in the European Cup shows that such races to catch up really do happen again and again.

FC Bayern: Three-goal deficits have only been made up for four times in the Champions League

Bayern themselves rarely found themselves in the situation of having to catch up from a large deficit in the second leg. Once, however, Munich came back furious: In 2015 Bayern lost the first leg in the quarter-finals of the premier class 1: 3 at FC Porto. At home, the German record champions then made it clear with a 6:1 progression. Thomas Müller, who scored one goal himself and set up two more, was there at the time. Ahead of the second leg against Manchester City, Müller says: “Maybe something magical is possible.”

However: In the Champions League only three teams have managed to catch up from a three-goal deficit from the first leg. FC Barcelona even recouped a 4-0 defeat against Paris St.-Germain 2017, winning 6-1 in the second leg. A number of German teams have also caught up on three goals in other competitions. Werder Bremen even managed to do that twice: in 1987 against Spartak Moscow and in 1999 against Olympique Lyon – both in the UEFA Cup.