Bayern Munich's Narrow Win Over Wolfsburg Despite Kane's Miss
Harry Kane’s rare misfire from the spot summed up Bayern Munich’s mood – drained, a touch ragged – but not their result. Even well short of their fluent best, the Bundesliga champions ground out a 1-0 win at struggling Wolfsburg, just days after their Champions League semi-final heartbreak against Paris Saint-Germain.
They did it thanks to one moment of clarity from Michael Olise. And a slice of good fortune from the woodwork.
Kane slips, Bayern stumble, but Olise delivers
The scars from midweek were obvious. Bayern had gone out of Europe 6-5 on aggregate to PSG, their 1-1 draw in Munich on Wednesday leaving them a goal short of a first Champions League final in six years. Thomas Tuchel responded with six changes to his starting XI, but the reshuffle stripped Bayern of rhythm as much as it offered fresh legs.
The champions hogged the ball. They did not scare Wolfsburg with it.
Kane, still the league’s top scorer and usually the man who tidies up any loose ends, had the chance to ease the tension on 36 minutes. Up stepped the Englishman, on a run of 24 successful Bundesliga penalties. He slipped. The ball flew wide. His first league spot-kick miss in Germany, and a moment that crystallised Bayern’s fraying edge.
The miss rattled them. Wolfsburg, fighting to haul themselves clear of trouble, sensed it and dug in. Bayern’s attacks stayed predictable, their tempo flat, the hangover from Paris heavy in their legs and minds.
The breakthrough finally came after the interval. The pressure, slow and methodical rather than ferocious, eventually snapped the hosts’ resistance in the 56th minute. Olise found space, opened his body and whipped a gorgeous, curling shot into the top corner. One clean strike, all finesse and conviction, in a match largely devoid of both.
Wolfsburg refused to fold. Their moment came late and dramatic. In the 89th minute, Mattias Svanberg found himself clear, only goalkeeper Jonas Urbig to beat. He beat him – but not the post. The ball cannoned back out, Bayern survived, and the champions escaped with three points that owed as much to luck as to control.
Bayern still chasing the double
For all the emotional drain of their European exit, Bayern’s season still carries weight. The domestic double remains on the table. They will meet Stuttgart in the German Cup final on 23 May, a chance to bookend a turbulent campaign with silverware at home, even if the big continental prize has slipped away again.
In the league, the landscape is tightening behind them. Borussia Dortmund in second and RB Leipzig in third have already locked in their Champions League places. Stuttgart sit fourth, level on 61 points with Hoffenheim in fifth, in a scrap where every touch and tackle now feels like it might decide a season. Only the top four will walk into next year’s Champions League; someone with a strong campaign will fall.
Bayern, bruised but still standing, know that margin better than anyone right now.
Martínez leads Inter’s statement win before cup final
In Italy, Lautaro Martínez chose his moment to remind everyone why he sits atop the Serie A scoring charts. Back in Inter’s starting lineup after an injury layoff, the Argentina striker drove a ruthless 3-0 win at Lazio that felt less like a dead rubber and more like a warning.
These two meet again in the Coppa Italia final in midweek. Inter used this as a dress rehearsal. Lazio may feel they watched the main act.
With the league title already wrapped up for Inter and Lazio marooned in eighth, outside the European spots, the stakes on paper looked low. Martínez didn’t play it that way.
Six minutes in, a long throw caused chaos. Marcus Thuram flicked it on, Martínez pounced, and with a crisp volley he beat the goalkeeper for his 17th league goal of the season. One chance, one finish. Inter in front, Lazio on the back foot.
The champions tightened their grip before half-time. Martínez drifted left, combined neatly with Andy Diouf and then slipped the ball across the edge of the box. Petar Sucic met it first time, curling a superb shot into the top corner. Clinical, cold, and 2-0.
Any hope of a Lazio response evaporated just before the hour. Alessio Romagnoli flew into a dangerous challenge on Ange-Yoan Bonny and saw red, leaving the hosts to chase shadows with 10 men.
Inter simply turned the screw. On 75 minutes, a flowing move sliced through midfield and Henrikh Mkhitaryan arrived to lash the ball into the roof of the net. Three goals, no reply, and a psychological marker laid down ahead of Wednesday night’s final at the Stadio Olimpico.
Lazio now have days, not weeks, to find answers.
Sixteen-year-old Mesloub lights up Lens, sinks Nantes
On Friday in France, a teenager needed only seconds to redraw an entire season.
Mezian Mesloub, 16 years old and fresh off the bench for Lens, stepped onto the pitch against Nantes and immediately wrote his name into the club’s modern history. His impact: two touches, one goal, and a 1-0 win that carried massive consequences at both ends of Ligue 1.
In the 79th minute, with the game goalless and tense, Mesloub pounced on a loose ball in the box with his first touch. His second sent it crashing into the net. On his Ligue 1 debut, he broke the deadlock, secured Champions League football for Lens next season and, at the same time, condemned Nantes to relegation.
The victory guarantees Lens a top-three finish, nine points clear of fourth-placed Lille with both teams having two matches left. That cushion locks in a place among Europe’s elite for next year.
The goal also keeps the title race alive, at least mathematically. Lens, sitting second, are the only side still capable of catching PSG.
The odds, though, are stacked heavily in Paris. PSG, fresh from booking a Champions League final spot, can move six points clear – with a vastly superior goal difference and two games to go – if they beat Brest at home on Sunday. That would all but secure the trophy, even if they cannot formally clinch it until they travel to Lens on Wednesday night.
By then, the champions-elect may be walking into a stadium already dreaming of a very different European future – one sparked by a 16-year-old who needed only a moment to change everything.
