Will Bayern Munich Come To Regret The Result Against Celtic?

It feels like a lost opportunity for Bayern Munich. On Wednesday, the Rekordmeister beat Scottish giants Celtic 2-1 thanks to goals by Michael Olise (45’) and Harry Kane (49’). Although it is a win ahead of the return leg, the 79th-minute strike by Daizen Maeda means Bayern still has work to do at the Allianz Arena next week.

“The tie is absolutely not over,” Bayern Munich head coach Vincent Kompany said at the press conference after the game. “It sounds cliché, but it’s only half time.” What will frustrate Kompany, though, is that the game could have been over, especially considering Saturday’s game against Bayer Leverkusen at the BayArena.

That game on Saturday feels like a title decider. A win by Bayern Munich and the Bundesliga title race is undoubtedly over. A win by Leverkusen, and Bayern is still in the driver’s seat, but the gap would be just five points rather than the possible eight or 11 points.

“We played really well over large spells of the game, but there are moments where you have to defend,” Kompany said. “It’s always annoying to concede, especially from a set piece—but overall, we deserved to win. We’re in a good position for the second leg.”

The trouble is the position ahead of the second leg could be even more clearcut. Bayern certainly had chances to win this game by an even more significant margin. Kane, for example, missed two clear headers in the first half. Then, in the second half, after Kane scored the most difficult of his three chances, Bayern took the foot off the pedal and then struggled to get the intensity back up after Celtic did score.

“We lost a bit of control after the second goal, and then the fans were there, and the stadium got loud,” midfielder Joshua Kimmich said after the game. “It’s difficult to control every game over 95 minutes. Of course, that’s our goal, but it’s not easy when the opponent has momentum. We conceded an unnecessary goal, and it was important to defend the win until the end.”

How will this result impact the Leverkusen game? “We had many problems in our last games against Leverkusen,” Kimmich said. “In the last two games, we dominated them but didn’t find a way to score goals. We must find a solution to that on Saturday and defend it well. It’ll be a good game.”

A midweek game at this stage of the season can undoubtedly have implications for the weekend. Leverkusen found this out the hard way last weekend. After a hard-fought DFB Pokal quarterfinal against rivals 1. FC Köln (3-2 a.e.t), Leverkusen failed to get beyond a 0-0 draw against Wolfsburg on Saturday.

Like Leverkusen last week in their midweek game, Bayern probably used up more energy than anticipated, and that could turn out to be good news for a title race that feels already over. But what does it mean for this tie? Realistically, Bayern should be good enough to see off Celtic at home next Tuesday. However, the late Maeda goal also leaves enough uncertainty to make that an interesting fixture.