After the 0:1 defeat at Villarreal, Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann gave the all-clear for Leon Goretzka. He wouldn’t have been surprised about a penalty.
Because he wants to “build him up carefully” after the long injury break, Julian Nagelsmann brought Leon Goretzka on as a wild card in Villarreal on Wednesday evening. However, substituting him around half an hour later was not part of the Bayern coach’s plan for the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final.
It was just the third minute of stoppage time when Villarreal centre-back Pau Torres elbowed Goretzka in the face in an aerial duel in his own penalty area, just before heading away a Lucas Hernandez cross. Goretzka, a 62nd-minute substitute for Thomas Müller, was left bleeding and unable to continue. Marc Roca came on for him for the final seconds.
Despite the bloody pictures, Goretzka apparently did not suffer a more serious injury. After the 1-0 defeat, Nagelsmann spoke of a “small cut” and a “black eye” on the 27-year-old and described the scene as follows: “It’s a brutal elbow, but I don’t know one hundred per cent whether it’s a penalty because Leon comes from behind, Pau heads the ball away and Leon hits his elbow in the face while he’s heading.
Pau “didn’t see Goretzka at all”, said Nagelsmann, and the elbow blow was therefore “not intentional” from his point of view. Nevertheless, he would not have been surprised about a late penalty whistle: “I don’t think anyone can complain if there is a penalty,” said Nagelsmann. “But I’m not complaining now either because there wasn’t one. For me, it’s not a clear-cut penalty. “
