Today I'm going back just two years to one of the darkest nights in Tottenham Hotspur's history: that was the night that saw the visit of Bayern Munich in the Champions League Group Stage and it ended up as Tottenham's worst ever Champions League defeat (home or away). Bayern won the game 2-7! I understand that it was also the first time that Spurs had conceded seven goals in a home game in their entire 137 year history and it was certainly the heaviest Spurs defeat I had ever witnessed. In other words, not a good night for the majority of the crowd of 60,127!
If I include two games in the Wembley Tournament of 1988, this was the fourth time that I had seen Bayern Munich and I had yet to see the five times (at that point) winners of the European Cup / Champions League win a match. I wasn't going to have to wait too much longer for that however. The warning signs were there as early as the second minute when Serge Gnabry fired in a fierce shot which Hugo Lloris did well to push away. Then, with 12 minutes gone, Spurs took the lead with a goal from Heung-min Son. Spurs didn't hold the lead for long however as, three minutes later, Joshua Kimmich scored with a shot from outside the box. With halftime approaching, Munich took the lead for the first time in the game with a superb turn and shot from within the penalty D by one of the world's top strikers Robert Lewandowski. It had been a fairly even first half and, at halftime, there was little to indicate what was to come. Within 10 minutes of the restart though Bayern were out of sight with Gnabry having bagged his first two goals of the evening. It was 1-4 and we would see a couple more examples of Gnabry's weird little cooking celebration before the evening was over. Just past the hour mark another of the world's top strikers Harry Kane pulled one back for Spurs from the penalty spot but it was to be a mere consolation. With Spurs pushing forward trying to rescue something from the game, Gnabry was put clean through by Thiago Alcantara (now at Liverpool) for his hattrick. Then, with five minutes remaining Lewandowski grabbed Bayern's sixth goal of the evening and still they weren't finished as that man Gnabry secured his fourth and Munich's seventh of the night a minute later. Maurizio Pochettino's Spurs left the field to a chorus of boos and he was dismissed the following month.
Gnabry's four goal scoring show was all the more difficult for Tottenham fans to take as he had started his career at local rivals Arsenal and indeed had made his Gunners first team debut as early as 2012 as a seventeen year old. In all he made only 18 appearances for Arsenal (plus three appearances on loan at West Bromwich Albion where manager Tony Pulis famously said that Gnabry was "not at the required level) before being signed by Werder Bremen in Germany for around £5Million. Apparently Arsene Wenger had not wanted the youngster to leave Arsenal but limited first team opportunities prompted Gnabry's move. Gnabry, who was born in Stuttgart, Germany, now has 29 caps (19 goals) to his name for the German national side.
Oh and I have a mini-rant about the anglicisation of Bayern Munchen's name. In Britain we have a habit of converting the names of foreign cities for some reason. As a result Munchen becomes Munich. But what I don't understand is why we don't change Bayern to Bavaria since that is what it means. Bavarian Munich anybody? Whatever you want to call them, they would go on to win their sixth European Cup / Champions League before the season was over.
CRB Match No. 2338
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