Kingsley Coman snatches a late draw against Salzburg and avoids an embarrassing defeat at Bayern Munich

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Red Bull Salzburg will long remember their first match of the Champions League finals as this double missed opportunity in the 81st. Faced with Bayern Munich, Wednesday February 16, the Austrians led in the score for a long time, had the opportunities to kill the match, before cracking at the very end of the game (1-1). An important draw for the Bavarians whose objective is to reach the quarter-finals.

For a long time the young Chukwubuike Adamu will have been the Salzburg hero. Returning to the game prematurely in place of the injured Noah Okafor, the Austrian prodigy scored just nine minutes after his entry, with a curled shot at the entrance to the area. The conclusion of the first twenty minutes of great intensity from the young people of Salzburg, as fast in the transitions as they are strong in the duels. The preview of what was going to be the rest of the first period, too. Asphyxiated, the Bavarians could only see the damage.

But the intensity and rhythm offered by the Austrians knew its first limits on returning from the locker room. Less sharp or physically fresh, they even began to recede gradually. Gradually, Bayern regained confidence, managed to keep the ball and struck more often on goal. With 8 saves on the 22 shots taken by Bayern, Swiss goalkeeper Philipp Köhn delayed the deadline.

Ten minutes from the end of the game, on one of the only successful counterattacks of the second period, Red Bull twice missed the opportunity to kill the game. The fault with a stoppage of the goalkeeper, first, then with a rescue of Benjamin Pavard, then. The kind of opportunities that don’t come twice and come at a high price when they aren’t converted.

As the first shy smiles began to appear around the Red Bull Arena lawn, Kingsley Coman took it upon himself to silence everyone. On a long deep cross from another Frenchman, Benjamin Pavard, the man who offered the continental title to Munich in 2019 crucified the opposing goalkeeper. A goal at the end of regulation time to offer the draw to his team. Something to approach the return match more calmly.


source site-18