David Miliband will on Wednesday urge British ministers to forge closer links with the EU and condemn the “absurd” lack of cooperation between London and Brussels on foreign and defence issues.
The former foreign secretary will give a speech at the Irish embassy in London in which he will criticise the Conservatives for their attitude towards the EU and call on the next government to seek much closer ties.
The speech marks a rare intervention in domestic politics for Miliband, who left parliament in 2013 to take up his role as head of the International Rescue Committee in New York. He has repeatedly refused to comment on rumours he could seek a return to British politics before the next election.
Miliband will say: “It is no secret that I always thought that Brexit was a folly. But the self-harm is still shocking.
“The British government rejected the idea of a foreign and defence policy partnership with the EU when it was proposed in 2019. We are therefore left in the absurd position where the EU has strategic partnership agreements with Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan, but not the UK.
“It has framework agreements to facilitate the EU’s common security and defence policy with 21 partners, including Colombia and Vietnam, but not with the UK. It has trade and technology councils with the US, and with India – albeit that it faces serious challenges – but not the UK.”
He will call for an agreement between the UK and EU covering defence procurement, cybersecurity, illegal migration, international development and green technology. Such an agreement could even be a legally binding treaty between the two, he suggested, a move which could trigger significant domestic political controversy.
Miliband’s comments are markedly different in tone from most recent remarks on the EU by Labour frontbenchers.
The party leader, Keir Starmer, has ruled out rejoining the single market or the customs union, and quickly shot down an idea by the European Commission last month to make it easier for people aged between 18 and 30 to travel between Britain and the EU. Party strategists say they are unwilling to seek much closer ties in part because of the need to win back leave-supporting voters who voted for the Conservatives in 2019.
Labour has talked about signing agreements with the EU in a limited number of areas however, including defence and exports of livestock and food. The Guardian revealed last month that David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, wants to frequently attend meetings of the monthly foreign affairs council, an idea which Miliband will back in his speech.
Miliband’s speech marks the most in-depth examination of what could go into a UK-EU defence and security pact. In it he will call for the two to collaborate and coordinate on a wide range of issues, including launching joint defence research and procurement programmes.
He will also criticise the Tories for making such discussions politically unpalatable. “It is not healthy to have the EU seen as beyond the pale by the Conservative party,” he will say.
Surveying recent election losses, some Conservatives have concluded that the problem is a deficit of radical Conservatism – a prospectus defined by commitment to always cutting taxes, public spending and immigration. Natalie Elphicke would once have been considered a likely proponent of that approach, but on Wednesday the MP for Dover expressed her frustration with Rishi Sunak’s leadership by moving in a very different direction – to cross the Commons floor and join Labour.
Ms Elphicke’s politics, rooted on the hard right of her former party, gave no indication of propensity for conversion to Keir Starmer’s creed. Setting policy differences aside, some Labour MPs are queasy about the concerted effort their new colleague put into supporting Charlie Elphicke, her predecessor in the Dover seat and now ex-husband, when he faced allegations of sexual assault – offences for which he was jailed.
Ms Elphicke was among a group of MPs whose lobbying of a judge in the case was deemed a breach of the code of conduct by the parliamentary regulator. Had her defection not come with a commitment to stand down at the next general election, there would be difficult questions to answer about her suitability as a Labour candidate.
Meanwhile, with three Tory MPs switching to other parties so far this year – two to Labour, one to Reform – the question animating Conservative benches is who might be next. The losses do not substantially affect parliamentary arithmetic. The impact is on morale. Opposition leaders tend not to be overly discriminating in accepting defectors, partly because they want to advertise the breadth of their appeal across the political spectrum, but mostly because the mere fact of an MP switching sides suggests political momentum. And for an incumbent administration, it is a reliable indicator of irreversible rot.
Ms Elphicke’s record might not make her a natural fit with Labour, but the terms in which she justified the decision were crafted with precision to match the opposition’s lines of attack on Mr Sunak – that he is untrustworthy, ineffective and weak. It was a political coup de théâtre, which left the prime minister looking visibly deflated in the Commons.
Such things matter more in the hothouse atmosphere of Westminster than beyond. In the bigger picture, winning the allegiance of former Tory voters is an essential stage on the journey from opposition to power, and recruiting sitting Tory MPs sends an effective signal that the doors are open. But appearing to pay almost no heed to the credentials of the recruit sits at odds with the opposition’s function in presenting voters with a clear alternative to the government.
Voters like broad-church parties but they also need a sense of those parties’ principles, and where the boundaries lie. Adding one more Labour seat at Tory expense without even requiring a byelection is a gift Sir Keir might have felt he could hardly refuse. Yet he might, when the flurry of excitement has died down, pause to consider how well his new MP embodies the values he intends to bring to office.
That is a luxuriant problem to have compared with the challenge the prime minister now faces. Defections rarely express irresistible attraction to a new party. The motor force is repulsion away from the old one. Ms Elphicke’s decision says very little about Labour, but it is eloquent in casting Mr Sunak’s party as a lost cause.
The Gold Coast Suns are considering overhauling the jumper and logo that has represented the club for its 14 years of existence in the AFL.
The Suns on Wednesday night called a meeting of stakeholders to discuss a potential new look for the club, according to 7NEWS Melbourne’s Mitch Cleary.
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“This is really exciting,” Cleary told Talking Footy.
“Year 14 for the Gold Coast Suns and they feel it’s time to look at a new logo and a new jumper for 2025.
“Last night they brought together a focus group of stakeholders, including members, about some early concepts and ideas about next year and what the jumper can look like.
“What I’m told is (the Suns are thinking of) having the logo a little less prominent (on the jumper), potentially a new logo as well, and a different change of colour, so a bit more yellow on that jumper than we’ve seen in the past.”
It’s all part of a whole-of-club reset as the competition’s second youngest active club looks to leave the woes of its first decade and a half in the past.
The Suns are considering changing their jumper. Credit: Michael Willson/AFL Photos/AFL Photos via Getty Images
The Suns have never played finals in their 14 seasons in the competition and have never won more than 10 games, a feat they achieved way back in 2014.
That year, Gold Coast looked certain to play finals after winning seven of their first nine games, and sitting 9-6 after Round 16 when the competition’s best player and Suns skipper Gary Ablett injured his shoulder.
They struggled to pick themselves back up thereafter, losing six of their final seven games to miss the finals.
“Gold Coast is going for a refresh,” Cleary said.
“They want to win a flag inside three years.
“They’re going wider on the whole market. (A name change) could come into it, but they’re still sticking with the Suns for now.”
Former Richmond captain Trent Cotchin, who won three premierships under Hardwick at the Tigers, couldn’t help but take a cheeky jab at his old coach and good mate.
“The colour doesn’t look all that good on Dimma, does it?” Cotchin laughed.
Every episode of Inside No 9 is dramatically different – and every episode is also essentially the same. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton tend to begin each instalment of their magnificent comedy-horror anthology by summoning a scene of distinctively British mundanity: it’s small, it’s boring, it’s awkward, it’s wryly funny – the workaday greyness sparkles with fragments of laugh-out-loud hilarity. Yet from the start, that tableau of normality bristles with nauseating dread – ultimately, the show will excavate from it a blast or two of terror. We know it’s coming, but we don’t know how and we don’t know when. At this point, Shearsmith and Pemberton have used the formula almost 50 times. That it still produces such grimly fascinating, heart-stoppingly tense and peerlessly clever half-hours of TV is nothing short of miraculous.
Perhaps not wanting to push their luck, Shearsmith and Pemberton are finally nudging the door closed on No 9, as (fittingly) this ninth series airs. It’s a “pause” in production, Pemberton has said, rather than a decisive finale. That noncommittal approach will probably quash hopes for a twist to end all twists: Inside No 9 is notorious for its incredible endings – the sort of shock reveals that make the ground below your feet shift. It would have been fascinating to see how it pulled off its ultimate denouement.
But for now, at least, we have the opening episode of a new series to be getting on with. Once again, a typically humdrum scene is established on a sparsely populated London underground train, but you’d pinch yourself if you really did find yourself sitting in this carriage. It’s like being in a mashup of recent TV hits, with a roll-call of star names to die for: Siobhan Finneran (Happy Valley), Charlie Cooper (This Country), Philippa Dunne (Motherland), Joel Fry (Plebs), Mark Bonnar (Guilt, Catastrophe), Susan Wokoma (Year of the Rabbit) and a practically unrecognisable Matthew Kelly.
Inside No 9 is clearly a dream gig for any actor (later episodes feature Eddie Marsan, Natalie Dormer and Adrian Scarborough). But despite their starry accomplices, Shearsmith and Pemberton remain the beating heart of the show. For all their narrative genius, Inside No 9 would never have worked without the duo’s ability to load their characters with depth and backstory in a matter of seconds. Here, a mustachioed and tweed-jacketed Shearsmith is a man who has retired into a world of meek comfort – his wife (Finneran) squirms against her husband’s late-life conformity – while Pemberton plays a viperish and proudly un-woke drag queen. Before long, Cooper’s homeless man stumbles through the carriage asking for money. The train screeches to a halt. The lights fail. Suddenly, a nurse (Dunne) reports her purse missing. Bonnar – a teacher, seething with barely repressed fury – decides to search everyone to find the culprit. But Fry’s jumpy conspiracy theorist refuses to let him check his bag.
Unlike other episodes, which are often littered with handbrake turns, this time we end up sitting tight for the big reveal. And it’s completely unguessable – that violent shift in perspective executed with aplomb. Unfortunately, though (and it pains me to say this considering how absorbing the rest of the episode is) the actual twist falls a bit flat. While the most successful endings tie together clues secreted throughout, this one seems to come out of nowhere and is far-fetched enough to leave you with more questions than answers. Although this is probably one of Inside No 9’s most meaningful episodes – there’s a thought-provoking political point nestled in there – a reveal is always most skin-crawlingly effective when it feels plausible on a literal level as well as a symbolic one.
However, Shearsmith and Pemberton have five more opportunities to get it bang on, as they have so many times before (future instalments involve an escape room, an Edwardian piano-tuner and strange new neighbours). And an episode of Inside No 9 that leaves you slightly nonplussed is still a hundred times more inventive and affecting than 99% of what is pumped through our screens. Most series drag out their one big twist over 10 hours; this show lavishes us with ingenuity.
Shearsmith and Pemberton have announced a West End show based on the series. Theatre will doubtless add an extra dimension to their hair-raising tales, but it’s TV – with its haunting intimacy – that feels like their natural home. Hopefully, two of the greatest minds to grace our screens won’t be able to stay away for long.
There’s a growing sense Fisker is circling the drain, with the automaker’s Austrian division filing for bankruptcy protection overnight.
In a statement Fisker said its Austrian arm has “voluntarily filed to open a restructuring proceeding via self-administration”.
Business publications suggest this period of self-administration is similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US.
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The automaker claims this move will allow Fisker Austria to pay employees, as well as “continue delivering its vehicles to customers to the extent possible, providing service, and updating its over-the-air software”.
Fisker Ocean Credit: CarExpert
At the beginning of the week Magna Steyr, the Austrian contract manufacturer that builds the Ocean crossover for Fisker, confirmed to Automotive News it had laid off 500 workers at its plant in Graz.
Magna said this was in part due to production of the Ocean being officially “idled” since March. The manufacturing pause was enacted to allow Fisker to clear remaining stocks of the electric crossover, which has recently been discounted by US$24,000 ($36,500).
A quick search on Fisker’s website shows plenty of cars available with prices cut from around US$62,000 ($94,200) to roughly US$38,000 ($57,800).
Fisker Ronin concept Credit: CarExpert
In a recent earnings call, Magna CEO Swamy Kotagiri said, “Our current outlook issued today assumes no further production [of the Fisker Ocean]”.
Originally Fisker and Magna were looking to build 23,000 Oceans every year. In 2023 Magna built around 10,000 Oceans.
Fisker Alaska concept Credit: CarExpert
In its April filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Fisker said that it had around US$50 million ($76 million) in cash on hand, and it had missed a recent debt payment deadline. The company warned it might go out of business within 30 days if it cannot find more funding or an investor.
Fisker also sent a “conditional notice” to its US employees stating they may lose their jobs by end the June if rescue efforts don’t succeed.
At the end of March, Nissan reportedly pulled out of talks to swoop in and save Fisker. Under that plan, Nissan was to have invested US$400 million ($608 million) in Fisker, as well as manufacturing the Fisker Alaska ute and a Nissan spin-off at one of its North American factories.
If Fisker, as a whole, slides into bankruptcy it will be the second time an automaker founded by car designer Henrik Fisker has gone under.
His previous venture, Fisker Automotive, which made the Karma plug-in hybrid sedan, went bust in 2013, and its assets were sold to Chinese automotive supplier Wanxiang, which rebranded the vehicle as the Karma Revero.
Cameron Brannagan’s penalty earned Oxford United a place in the League One playoff final as they drew 1-1 at Peterborough to progress to Wembley 2-1 on aggregate. Oxford followed up their 1-0 first-leg triumph last Saturday to hold on for a draw in a pulsating second leg and set up a showdown with Bolton on 18 May.
Brannagan, a penalty specialist, made no mistake from the spot in first-half stoppage time after Des Buckingham’s side had briefly fallen behind to a Josh Knight goal. That is the way it stayed despite Peterborough piling on the pressure to no avail in the second half.
Peterborough were the highest scorers in the regular League One season with a vast array of attacking riches, but it was a central defender who carried their biggest threat during the first half, with Knight tormenting Oxford at set pieces. He glanced a header from a Joel Randall corner over the crossbar before pouncing on Harrison Burrows’s free-kick only to see a deflected shot beaten away by the Oxford goalkeeper Jamie Cumming. But the same combination did provide the breakthrough six minutes before half-time as a devilish delivery from Burrows was steered past Cumming by a fine sidefooted volley at the back post from Knight.
However, Burrows, League One’s player of the season, soon went from hero to villain when he conceded the penalty that allowed Oxford to level in the third minute of stoppage time at the end of the first half. He blocked a Brannagan free-kick with a raised arm and the same Oxford player was only too happy to again prove he is a master from the spot, sending Jed Steer the wrong way to convert his 10th penalty of the campaign.
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The hosts reacted to that self-inflicted blow well to dominate the second period and leave Oxford hanging on to their aggregate advantage. Randall’s first-time strike was bravely blocked by the face of Joe Bennett before Oxford’s captain, Elliott Moore, was fortunate to see his attempted clearance from a dangerous Burrows delivery roll straight to Cumming.
Manager Darren Ferguson threw on Malik Mothersille as the game entered the last quarter and the two-time League One golden boot winner Jonson Clarke-Harris then joined Peterborough’s attacking arsenal as their search for a goal grew more desperate. But it was a fruitless chase, despite a host of close shaves, with a Clarke-Harris header cleared off the line by Sam Long before Cumming produced a flying save to deny Knight a second and earn Oxford’s ticket to Wembley.
Brad Scott has played a relatively straight bat to rumours linking Harley Reid to Essendon after convivial scenes between the young gun and Bombers players last weekend.
Reid is under contract with West Coast until the end of 2026 and the Victorian has repeatedly said he is happy at the Eagles, desperate to help return them to the top of the AFL.
He is already eligible to extend his deal with the club.
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But nothing has stopped speculation about Reid’s future with one report naming Essendon as a club to watch.
Given his status as a No.1 draft pick and the impact he has had in just seven games this season, though, it goes without saying that all 10 Victorian outfits would throw their hat in the ring if it worked for them.
Notably, though, the Bombers hold one of the strongest cards after Reid spent some time there for a week of AFL club experience and also played for their VFL team last year. He also played for Carlton’s VFL team.
Footage of Essendon players enjoying a light catch-up with the 19-year-old after the team’s win over West Coast prompted jokes that the recruiting for 2027 had already begun.
“What are the boys saying here — just mentioning that you play on Anzac Day, some nice spots out there at Windy Hill?” James Brayshaw said on Channel 7’s Talking Footy.
Bombers coach Brad Scott laughed without responding directly to the rumours.
“Oh, well, we were very fortunate to have Harley down doing his academy AFL club experience at Essendon,” he said.
“He made a significant impression on our playing group in a week of footy.
“Usually with those young players you have them join in some drills but not all drills. Harley tore up all of our drills.
“We knew straight away this is a special talent, really likeable young man, too, so obviously made a big impression on our players.”
While he did an admirable job masking his club’s obvious interest, Scott’s comments point to the reality that everyone — not only Essendon — would sign Reid if they could.
Whether it was in the under-18s for Bendigo or Vic Country, an intraclub, the VFL or now in the AFL, Reid’s exceptional potential has been and is there for all to see.
North Melbourne certainly knew he could help turn around their fortunes, offering to trade for pick No.1, something even the finals-contending Melbourne tried to do.
But he will be at the Eagles for the foreseeable future and potentially beyond, though the new three-year contracts for draftees have made his re-signing this year somewhat less of a priority.
Reid was recently supported by West Coast with a week off to rest his body and flew home to visit family and friends in his hometown Tongala.
Meanwhile, the Bombers are enjoying the rise of their own young stars.
Scott said he noted the potential of Sam Durham and Nic Martin when he first began preparing to win the Essendon job.
“I walked in and said they’re up there with our most capable players,” he said.
“Sam’s played an outside role, he was a bit almost type-cast as a kid because he was a bit smaller, lighter. But this year we just decided he’s got all the attributes as an inside midfielder.”
The 42-year-old, who announced his departure as chief executive on Wednesday, realised early on that punk, once a subculture, could be turned into a lucrative marketing brand.
Under Watt, and his co-founder Martin Dickie, BrewDog styled itself as an abrasive upstart on a mission to upset Big Beer and, in his own words, “set fire to the scene”.
Its cornerstone product was christened Punk IPA, while the crowdfunders who supplied much of its early-stage investment were given the soubriquet “Equity Punks” and invited to rowdy annual meetings that resembled rock festivals rather than an investors’ gathering.
Along the way, Watt revelled in his role as the snarling public face of BrewDog, while Dickie took a back seat.
Watt gleefully lashed out at anyone who BrewDog did not consider “punk”, often as part of the company’s frequent, sometimes near-the-knuckle publicity stunts.
The Scot, who comes from a successful east coast fishing family, threw taxidermy cats out of a helicopter above the City of London, a clunky reference to the financial district’s fat cats.
James Watt at BrewDog’s Ellon brewery in Scotland in 2017. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
He and Dickie displayed their contempt for the corporate suits of the beer world by filming themselves blowing up cans of Heineken.
The strategy worked a charm. From a tiny startup operating out of Dickie’s mum’s garage, the pair created what is now the seventh-biggest UK beer brand.
Through hard graft and canny marketing, they also helped spur interest in a wider variety of styles, such as IPAs and stouts, to the benefit of the wider “craft beer revolution”.
Yet as the company has grown, from a standing start in 2006 to revenues of £321m in 2022, Watt struggled to ride the tiger of publicity.
BrewDog’s punk clothing began to fray in 2017. First, it threatened to sue a small family-run pub in a copyright row. Watt blamed “trigger happy” lawyers and dropped the suit.
But he was angrily defensive about BrewDog’s legal action against a bar in Leeds that dared to name itself Draft Punk. “They can’t own punk, that’s the whole point,” said the unfortunate bar owner at the time.
BrewDog was beginning to look less like a punk challenger to the status quo and more like the City fat cats it had once showered with stuffed felines.
Efforts to wrest back control of the narrative, through ever more daring stunts, didn’t always go to plan.
The launch of Pink IPA, a pink “beer for girls”, ostensibly to raise awareness about gender pay inequality and sexist advertising, was criticised as cynical.
A “transgender beer” raised money for LGBTQI+ charities but drew criticism from Stonewall for the language used. A “protest beer” mocking Vladimir Putin’s homophobia deployed uncomfortable tropes about homosexuality.
But BrewDog’s punk image really began to unravel in 2021, when a group of people who had worked at the brewer, under the banner “Punks with Purpose”, accused it – and Watt in particular – of fostering a “culture of fear” in which workers were bullied and “treated like objects”.
Watt threatened to sue the BBC over claims made in the documentary, including that he had made female staff feel “uncomfortable”. BrewDog even took a complaint to the media regulator, Ofcom, which was dismissed.
One revelation that raised eyebrows was Watt’s own previous £500,000 investment in Heineken, one of the corporate behemoths he had ridiculed. Since then, BrewDog has struck a deal with Budweiser China to help it expand in the People’s Republic.
As concerns about its treatment of staff rumbled on, BrewDog lost its coveted B Corp status, which offers certification of a company’s ethical commitment to the environment, community and employees.
Watt has committed to donating some of his shares in the company to staff and some to the Founders’ Pledge, an organisation that encourages entrepreneurs to direct some of their wealth to projects that “drive positive change”.
Yet earlier this year, BrewDog met fresh criticism when it dropped its commitment to the accredited real living wage scheme – hiring new staff on the legal minimum instead and freezing pay for bar staff in London.
And if there were any lingering vestiges of punk around Watt, he appeared to shed them when fans of the brand spotted him attending Nigel Farage’s 60th birthday party with his partner, the former Made in Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo.
Watt’s departure as BrewDog chief executive comes as the company aims to make itself as attractive as possible to investors, before a mooted stock market float that some analysts have said could value the company at £2bn.
That could seal a bumper payday for Watt, who owns 21% of the company, proving that BrewDog’s brand of punk is particularly profitable.
Just ridiculous. Just Real Madrid. The team that appears to own this competition, that has some mystical hold over it and has lifted that trophy 14 times, are in the final again because, well, because of course they are. Late, very late on another wild, magical night here, the Santiago Bernabéu launched into a familiar chant. “That’s how Madrid win,” it goes, and so they do. Again and again and again, each time more epic, more absurd than the last, this football force that just can’t be contained. The closer you think you are, the further away it is, as Bayern Munich found.
Bayern had held on, they had survived, and they had scored. They should have scored again, ending this, killing off the team that just will not die, but they hadn’t. And yet still, Wembley was so close now. There were less than three minutes to go in this semi-final, but it turned out to be a lifetime, one they will surely spend wondering how this happened. Enough time not just for Madrid to equalise but to win it, two goals from the former Stoke and Newcastle striker Joselu, sent on as a sub, taking them to the final, this place exploding.
It had happened again and it was so cruel, Manuel Neuer – Bayern’s saviour – dropping the first at his feet on 87.27 minutes and the forward turning the second over the line on 90.02, a goal at first disallowed for offside, but then reinstated, royalty heading through to another final, another chance to wear its crown.
It would be a game of waves, Thomas Tuchel had said, and the first came crashing in after just seven seconds. A loose ball set Vinícius sprinting up the right and winning a corner, standing there in front of the north stand roaring and inviting them to roar too. In those opening minutes, they did often: this was a huge occasion anyway, the bus arriving through noise and smoke, and an early momentum built. There was a hint of concern, even nervousness, in the Bayern side, their passing under pressure lacking the precision to give them respite.
Serious scares arrived soon. The first came when Dani Carvajal’s ball went all the way across the face of goal, where Rodrygo was a fraction away from connecting; the second a few minutes later when Bayern, momentarily distracted by a ball that curled off the pitch and back on again, were caught out by a quick throw with another ball. Carvajal slipped it to Vinícius, near the corner of the six-yard box. Neuer somehow pushed it against the far post and, even more impressively, stopped Rodrygo’s follow-up from the floor.
Joselu pounces to score the equaliser after profiting from Manuel Neuer’s mistake. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/PA
Madrid should have led, and Neuer was there again late in the half, tipping away a swinging cross from Vinícius that threatened to go all the way through and in at the far post.
There was action at the other end, although for Bayern it wasn’t so much chances missed as chances not quite made. Toni Kroos slid in superbly to stop a Harry Kane pass aimed at the run of Leroy Sané and twice the Germans opened up Madrid on the wing. From the left, released by Jamal Musiala and well inside the area, Serge Gnabry’s ball towards Kane, alone by the far post and easy enough to reach, was horribly hit; from the right, with men loading the area, Sané’s scuffed cross was even worse.
Bayern had come through that early storm and were starting to gain a little control; what they could not find yet was a clear way through, a space into which to advance. Jude Bellingham in particular plugged holes. When the opportunity to deliver did open up, passes were overplayed or delayed a little too long. A couple of times, Kane couldn’t release the runners. He did, though, flash a superb volley out of nowhere just past Andriy Lunin’s post.
The second half began with opportunities at each end, Eric Dier getting in the way of Fede Valverde and Carvajal deflecting Alphonso Davies’s effort just over. Vinícius had made the first of those and he escaped deep into the area soon after, beating Joshua Kimmich again to win a corner and imploring the fans to find their voice. Kane then scrambled free, held off Ferland Mendy, and drew a save from Lunin. This was shaping up to be an intriguing game, two genuine heavyweights aware of their opponent’s qualities as well as their own.
Joselu celebrates scoring his first goal with Vinícius Júnior. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters
Vinícius seemed by far the most likely to mark this game, Bayern unable to contain him. Another wonderful run provided for Rodrygo whose shot slipped just past a post. The Bernabéu really found its voice, a sense of opportunity opening before them. This was not so much a wave now; it was a tsunami. Neuer saved Rodrygo’s free-kick and then produced an extraordinary save as Vinícius came racing inside yet again, defenders disappearing behind him, to let fly.
Bayern were suffering, Neuer a one-man resistance, just about keeping them in it. But for as long as they were, there might be a chance, and so it proved. There was a reminder that this was not done yet when Musiala, found by Davies, drew a sharp save from Lunin. And then, suddenly, it happened. The move began on the edge of their own area, space opening before them. Kane delivered a superb pass to the left to Davies who turned inside off the wing and smashed an extraordinary shot into the net.
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Madrid would have to come back again. This is their thing, the noise rising. They thought they had equalised almost immediately when Nacho turned in a corner, but the referee Szymon Marciniak was called to the VAR screen where he saw that the Madrid defender had put his hands on Kimmich’s face and pushed him over just before.
Bayern had a let-off, and might have ended it. Should have, in fact. Soon after Musiala found Kane inside the area but his shot though hit the side-netting. And then with eight minutes to go Kim Min-jae headed against the bar from three yards. Immediately after, Vinicius’s volley, found by Rüdiger, bent just over the bar. This was Madrid time, miracle time. For Bayern, it was all about the resistance, but their task was impossible: to hold back an irresistible force.
