Manchester City were two down after 28 minutes in Munich, and a full-back they signed from Leverkusen got them level

Manchester City spent last season watching the Women’s Champions League from the outside. They came back to it overnight, went two goals down in 28 minutes in Munich, and left with a point.

Two down in a stadium Bayern have only just moved into

Giulia Gwinn put Bayern ahead in the 11th minute. Seventeen minutes later Kerstin Casparij turned the ball into her own net, and City were 2-0 down away to a side that did not lose a single Bundesliga match last season. Bayern won that title with 24 wins and two draws from 26 games, their fourth in a row and their eighth in total.

The setting was new. Bayern’s women moved into Sportpark Unterhaching this summer after the club bought the ground, and this was their first Champions League match there. It holds 15,000. For half an hour it was doing exactly what a new home is supposed to do.

Mead on the stroke of half-time, and then a penalty that was saved

Beth Mead scored in the 45th minute, which mattered less for the scoreline than for what it did to the interval. Sam Coffey said afterwards that the goal changed the momentum going into the break and that City came out connecting better and further up the pitch.

The chance to level came on 62 minutes, when Bayern goalkeeper Ena Mahmutovic brought down Aoba Fujino. Khadija Shaw took the penalty. Mahmutovic saved it, having conceded the penalty herself a minute earlier, and Bayern were still in front.

Bayern’s Linda Dallmann was honest about the second half afterwards. She said her side lost some of their intensity and made too many mistakes, which is roughly what the last half-hour looked like from the outside too.

The equaliser came from a player Bayern know well

Carlotta Wamser got it in the 86th minute, a finish from inside the area. The 22-year-old Germany full-back joined City from Bayer Leverkusen this summer on a four-year deal, for a fee reported at around 650,000 euros including bonuses. Her first Champions League goal came against a German side, in a German stadium, months after she left the country to get it.

The draw made City the first English team to avoid defeat away to Bayern in European competition.

Four more matches on the opening night

Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain drew 1-1, Felicia Schröder scoring inside two minutes for Madrid and Sakina Karchaoui equalising from the penalty spot. Arsenal needed until the 93rd minute to beat HB Køge at Meadow Park, Mariona Caldentey converting a penalty after Selina Cerci was fouled. Inter beat Häcken 1-0 through Haley Bugeja’s fifth-minute goal, and Benfica won 2-1 at Juventus with both goals from Marit Bratberg Lund.

City are back in the competition because they won the Women’s Super League last season, a first English title in ten years and the end of a long run of Chelsea ones. They also won the FA Cup. A point in Munich is a reasonable way to restart in Europe, and it is more than the scoreline after 28 minutes suggested they would get.

Follow the rest of the Women’s Champions League league phase