Bodo/Glimt held Bayern for 46 minutes, and then conceded five

For forty-five minutes at the Allianz Arena on Thursday night, Bodo/Glimt looked like they might pull off the thing Norwegian clubs are not supposed to be able to do. Then Jamal Musiala scored 77 seconds into the second half, and the evening turned into the 5-0 everyone had assumed it would be.

Half-time had read 0-0. Full-time read Bayern Munich 5, Bodo/Glimt 0. Nothing in between was close.

Musiala’s night, and what it meant

The goal that broke it was Musiala’s, and the circumstances made it the story. The 23-year-old had collapsed in two pre-season friendlies, against RB Leipzig and Heidenheim, and was later diagnosed with absence seizures caused by a neurological dysfunction. He has told supporters himself that it does not put his health at risk. He had already come off the bench in the Bundesliga, but this was his first start of the season, and he marked it inside 90 seconds of the restart.

“I am very happy that I scored and was back in the starting XI in the Champions League,” he told DAZN afterwards. “I am slowly finding my rhythm again.”

Vincent Kompany now has a selection problem he will be delighted to have. Bayern’s front line had been functioning perfectly well without Musiala; it functions differently with him, and the difference showed up within a minute and a half of him being given the ball in a dangerous area.

Then the floodgates

Harry Kane made it two on 61 minutes, heading in a free-kick for his 55th Champions League goal. He has needed 71 appearances to get there, which makes him the third quickest to 55 in the competition’s history behind Erling Haaland’s 49 and Ruud van Nistelrooy’s 70. There is a version of Kane’s career where the individual numbers were the consolation prize. That version ended some time ago.

Alphonso Davies made it three on 77, driving in from the left the way he has done since he was a teenager. Michael Olise scored the fourth on 83 and the fifth in the second minute of stoppage time, and had set up Kane’s header on top of the brace. He was comfortably the best player on the pitch.

Bodo’s evening had already been coming apart. Their goalkeeper Nikita Haikin went off injured at half-time, and his replacement Julian Faye Lund was picking the ball out of his net within two minutes of coming on. Odin Bjortuft was sent off on 87 minutes, by which point the scoreline had stopped being the point.

The gap that the league phase keeps exposing

Bodo/Glimt are a serious side by the standards of Norwegian football and they have made European nights uncomfortable for bigger clubs before. They also played a full half at the Allianz Arena without conceding, which is not nothing. But the expanded league phase throws up these fixtures by design, and the first hour of this one was the familiar shape: a smaller club defending well, running out of legs, and then losing five inside forty-five minutes.

For Bayern the value is straightforward. Five goals, a clean sheet, Musiala back on the pitch and Kane still scoring at a rate that makes no sense. They will face harder nights than this before Christmas. They could hardly have asked for a more comfortable way to start.

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