Sadio Mané says he didn’t mean to score his first Champions League goal for Bayern Munich

Sadio Mané opened up his Champions League scoring account for Bayern Munich in their 5-0 over Viktoria Plzeň at the Allianz Arena. It was virtually one-way traffic from Julian Nagelsmann’s side and a wonderful night for Mané, who scored Bayern’s second goal and also provided a spectacular assist for Leroy Sané in the second half.

It was a debut Champions League goal for Mané and his seventh across all competitions in a Bayern shirt since making his move from Liverpool in the summer transfer window. After the match, however, Mané actually confessed that this goal was unintentional — he was actually trying to find a teammate!

“I actually wanted to pass. In soccer, you sometimes need a bit of luck,” he comically revealed (via Tz).

In the particular sequence for Mané’s goal, he had done exceptionally well to control Alphonso Davies’ throw-in to him, beat two Plzeň players with a cleverly lofted touch over the top of them, and trotted forward in possession just outside the box before there was a fortuitous deflection off of a Plzeň player that kept the ball in his path. By the looks on things, Mane was trying to play a little layoff pass to Leon Goretzka, who was close by to him on the edge of the area.

Once that stray touch from the Plzeň player put it right back at Mané’s feet, though, he made no mistake from just a few yards out!

Bayern now has two wins on the bounce after the international break, slightly quelling fears of a crisis when they went four matches without a win in the Bundesliga. They face one of their most difficult league tests of the season this weekend when they travel to the Westfalenstadion to take on Borussia Dortmund in Der Klassiker. Dortmund lost to FC Köln 3-2 last weekend themselves. Mané knows how difficult of a match it’s going to be but also realizes how equally important it is for Bayern to have their confidence back.

“That will be important, it’s good that we have our confidence back now. They have a big, full stadium. We expect a big game,” he said.

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