RB Leipzig has crashed out of the Champions League spectacularly. On Tuesday, the Red Bulls lost 7-0 to Manchester City. The Premier League champions demolished Leipzig thanks to five goals by Erling Haaland (22’ penalty, 24, 45’, 53’, and 57’) and goals by Ilkay Gündogan (49’) and Kevin de Bruyne (90’).
Much will be made of the penalty decision that led to the first goal. Slavko Vincic pointed to the spot after he was called over to the monitor by his VAR team. In the video area, Vincic decided that defender Benjamin Henrichs had handled the ball. The contact was minimal, and the decision to award a penalty will further the debate on how VAR should be used.
Not surprisingly, Leipzig’s players were unhappy with the refereeing decisions after the game. “I spoke to the referee again, and he told me that he didn’t see a handball but that the VAR had alerted him, so he went and checked the replay and awarded the penalty,” Henrichs said after the game. “For me, it wasn’t a penalty, but when you lose 7-0, it doesn’t need to be spoken about too much.”
Leipzig head coach Marco Rose, however, was quick to dismiss the referee’s decisions having any factor in how the game unfolded and instead put the blame on himself and his team. “There were two reasons behind our defeat today,” Rose said. “One was our aggression in duels at set pieces, and the other was that we didn’t find any solutions against their press when we had possession. In that regard, I also take responsibility because maybe I didn’t give the team enough instructions. We never got into the game in any way. The result is very tough to take."
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The referee was again in the focus shortly after Man City’s second goal. Man City goalkeeper Ederson had rushed out to recover a loose ball and then cluttered into Konrad Laimer without making contact. Vincic decided to play on and then handed a yellow card to the protesting Timo Werner.
Ederson should have certainly seen a yellow card, and Leipzig awarded a free kick. Whether those decisions going Leipzig’s way would have made a difference is, at best questionable. Man City, when in form, might be one of the two or three best club teams in the world. But you could tell that Leipzig had lost their collective heads after the two referee decisions and then when were quickly overwhelmed by City.
City doubled the lead within two minutes when Kevin De Bruyne — back in Pep Guardiola's starting XI — thundered a left-footed strike against the crossbar and Haaland headed the rebound into an unguarded net.
Haaland brought up his fifth hat-trick of the season after Ruben Dias hit the post from a corner in first-half stoppage time and further dismal set-piece defending from Leipzig meant City's No. 9 was able to match Lionel Messi and Luiz Adriano's record of five in a single Champions League match. Ilkay Gundogan got in on the act early in the second half and De Bruyne netted a majestic seventh late on.