Bayern Munich vs Porto match report: Pep Guardiola's rampant reds score five first-half goals on way to dominant comeback win

Bayern Munich 6 Porto 1 (agg: 7-4)

For reasons too obvious to mention, the phrase “The Great Escape” has never had much resonance in Germany. This, however, was some getaway.

Sometimes, you need performances like this to remind you how good a manager Pep Guardiola is and how supremely his teams can play. His only embarrassment was that he split his trousers urging his men on. It was, however, his opponents who fell apart at the seams. And yet for most teams the defeat in Portugal in the first leg should have been terminal. Bayern Munich had never pulled back a two-goal deficit in their history. In this season’s Champions League Porto were unbeaten. They were 3-1 up from the first leg and yet they were crushed before half time.

The fact Porto finished the match with 10 men when Ivan Marcano was shown a second yellow was immaterial. That Jackson Martinez, who must have imagined his goal – Porto’s third – in the Estadio do Dragao would be decisive, scored here was beside the point. The dismissal to the stands of their manager, Julen Lopetegui, good enough to have coached Spain’s Under-21s to successive European titles, was a footnote.

Even Xabi Alonso’s delicious free-kick that provided Bayern’s sixth was an afterthought. All that mattered in this match came between minutes 14 and 40 when Bayern accelerated away, dare one say it, like Steve McQueen on a stolen motorcycle.

For Guardiola, only one thing mattered. His team would play the way his teams always play. They would press hard, the passes would be short and sharp, the attacks precise. There would be none of the cavalry charges that had come so spectacularly to grief in last year’s semi-final against Real Madrid.

Thiago's brave header opened the scoring after 13 minutes (Getty Images)

Even he, however, would not have expected what was to come. Forty-five minutes of the most destructive football in the club’s memory that would leave Porto a bloodied mess and put Bayern through to their fourth successive Champions League semi-final.

The match began with Robert Lewandowski striking the post from close range after Fabiano had saved from Thomas Müller. It must have crossed a few Bavarian minds that it might be one of those nights. A few minutes later, it became clear that it wasn’t.

Jerome Boateng scored the vital second (Getty Images)

The breakthrough came with a move involving two of Guardiola’s signings, a cross from Juan Bernat, headed home from point-blank range by Thiago Alcantara, a footballer he has admired since he was a kid at Barcelona’s academy at La Masia. It was the early goal Bayern craved. Porto would have known what was coming but they completely shied away from confronting it. Within half an hour, they had been humiliated.

A corner from Philipp Lahm was nodded on by Holger Badstuber – who was taking Dante’s place in the centre of defence after the Brazilian’s disastrous display in the first leg – and headed gently home by Jérôme Boateng. At 2-0, Bayern were through on away goals but they were after much more than that.

Robert Lewandowski heads home the first of his two goals (Getty Images)

The goal that took them into the lead on aggregate was football as if imagined by the Harlem Globetrotters: a cross from Lahm, flicked on at pace by Müller and headed in by Lewandowski.

Thomas Muller had a goal and two assists in a brilliant performance (Getty Images)

Porto, struggling to hang on after that avalanche, could barely rouse themselves to cross their own halfway line. For most of the first half, they did not manage so much as a shot and at the other end they just kept on coming. One from Müller struck Bruno Martins Indi and left Fabiano hopelessly stranded.

Lewandowski fired in to make it five before the break (Getty Images)

Then, as Porto attempted vainly to clear their own lines, they lost possession and Müller held off his marker long enough to pull the ball back for Lewandowski, who seemed to have taken too many touches. But this was not a night for too many touches and his last sent the ball swishing into the net for a fifth time.

Xabi Alonso scored a sweet free-kick to cap the scoring (Getty Images)

It seemed odd to think the day before, Guardiola had been asked about his future. He had replied that he was planning a day off on Wednesday. It is difficult to imagine Pep relaxing but his favourite book, which he says he returns to continually, is a novel by his friend, the Spanish film-maker David Trueba. It is called Learning to Lose. He has no need to pick it up again just yet.