Manuel Neuer is expected to walk out at the Bernabéu on Tuesday evening for Bayern Munich’s Champions League quarterfinal first leg, and the trip could be his last to the stadium. The 40-year-old goalkeeper has not said whether he will retire after the season, leaving one more Madrid night hanging over a career that has already shaped European knockout football.
For Neuer, the Bernabéu has delivered both his sharpest triumph and some of Bayern’s hardest nights. In 2012, he won the shootout there by saving Cristiano Ronaldo’s penalty and Kaká’s penalty, while Sergio Ramos shot over the crossbar and Bastian Schweinsteiger converted the final spot kick to send Bayern into the final in Munich. Two years later, Bayern lost 1-0 in Madrid in the semifinal first leg, then collapsed 0-4 at home in the return, with Ronaldo and Ramos both scoring twice in a defeat that stood as Bayern’s heaviest home loss in the Champions League up to that point.
The pattern turned again in 2017, when Bayern lost 2-4 after extra time in Madrid in the quarterfinal second leg. Arturo Vidal was sent off after a controversial second yellow card, Neuer played on despite a fracture in his left foot during extra time, and Real Madrid again found a way through a Bayern side that had entered the tie with high hopes. The numbers around those meetings are part of why this week’s trip carries so much weight: three Madrid exits, one shootout win, and one more chance for Neuer to add to a record built over 15 years at FC Bayern.
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What happens next is simple enough. Bayern go to Madrid on Tuesday in the first leg, and for Neuer the match may close another chapter at the place where he has both won the biggest individual duel and absorbed some of the hardest blows of his career. He won the World Cup in 2014 and remains one of the defining figures of his generation, but he has not yet said whether there will be another season to come.
