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While Arsenal were busy Arsenaling their way to a worthy but dull Bigger Cup quarter-final first leg win at Sporting on Tuesday, the players of Real Madrid and Bayern Munich released the collective handbrake and performed many high-speed donuts, wheel spins and Rockfords as a pleasing counterpoint to the careful mirror-signal-manoeuvring on display at Lisbon’s Estádio José Alvalade. Like a couple of stolen supercars racing each other around a shopping mall in The Fast and the Furious: Bicester Village, these two European heavyweights massively committed to the bit, not unlike a daily football email bogged down in a laboured motoring metaphor. “When I see the chances we had, that has to give us confidence that we can score more goals,” whooped Vincent Kompany following a hi-octane Bernabéu white-knuckle ride from which his team emerged deserving winners, even if it was their 40-year-old goalkeeper who took home the gong for player of the match.
“They also had some good chances and let some go, so we’re glad about the win here first of all,” cheered Manuel ‘Old Sheldon’ Neuer, who pulled off nine saves of varying degrees of difficulty as Bayern saw off their hosts 2-1. On a night when the recipient of Fifa’s inaugural peace prize showcased his conciliatory credentials with a potentially apocalyptic threat to “a whole civilisation”, it seems glib to resort to military analogies [but you’re going to do it anyway? – Football Daily Ed]. However, few things provide a better distraction than watching Michael Olise spend 90 minutes mounting an unstoppable one-man insurgency against a hapless opposition left-back. One of several standout performers across both teams, the former Crystal Palace winger subjected the unfortunate Madrid defender Álvaro Carreras to a roasting so severe it felt like a gross violation of the Geneva conventions.
