Harry Kane's Penalty Miss and Bayern's Narrow Victory Against Wolfsburg
Harry Kane rarely looks mortal from 12 yards. In the Bundesliga, he simply hadn’t. Twenty-four penalties, twenty-four goals. Then came minute 36 in Wolfsburg, a scuffed right-foot swing, and a ball rolling wide of the post that sent a ripple of disbelief around the Volkswagen Arena and far beyond.
It was not just a miss. It was an incident.
Konstantinos Koulierakis had clipped Michael Olise in the box, the sort of clumsy contact that never survives a VAR check. Kane placed the ball, went through his familiar routine and, as he struck it, seemed to slip. The shot dragged past the right-hand upright, his first penalty failure in Germany, his first Bundesliga blemish from the spot.
Television replays quickly added fuel. Jeanuël Belocian appeared to tread on the penalty spot moments before the kick, his boot seemingly disturbing the turf. Did it matter? Did it change the footing? Bayern players certainly had questions, and Kane’s slight loss of balance only sharpened the debate. What it did change, definitively, was the scoreboard: still 0-0, still no reward for Bayern’s control as the interval approached.
Wolfsburg clung on, occasionally threatening to turn Bayern’s frustration into full-blown anxiety. Tom Bischof came closest, thundering a long-range effort against the crossbar in the first half, a reminder that Ralph Hasenhüttl’s side still carried a counter-punch even as they retreated deep.
The longer Bayern went without scoring, the more the game tightened around them. Then Olise tore it open.
Second Half
Ten minutes into the second half, the winger picked up the ball on the right and decided he’d seen enough of stalemates. He drove inside, gliding past his marker, opened up his body and whipped a fierce, arcing shot into the far corner. Kamil Grabara flew, stretched, guessed, but never got close. It was a moment of pure, individual quality, the sort of goal that instantly shifts the entire mood of an afternoon.
Bayern had the lead their second-half pressure merited; Wolfsburg suddenly had to abandon their bunker.
Once ahead, Vincent Kompany’s side tightened their grip. Wolfsburg, so lively on the break before the goal, ran into a red wall. The spaces they had exploited in transition began to close. Jamal Musiala nearly killed the contest soon after Olise’s strike, only for Grabara to respond with a sharp save that kept the hosts alive and the tension simmering.
Wolfsburg’s problem, as it has been too often this season, came in the box. They worked themselves into moments, half-chances, glimpses. They lacked the finish.
The late stages brought a surge of desperation from Hasenhüttl’s team. Mattias Svanberg came agonisingly close in the final minutes, his effort beating Manuel Neuer but not the woodwork, crashing against the post and bouncing away. It summed up their night: effort, intent, but no decisive touch.
The absences of Mohamed Amoura and Kevin Paredes, both missing for “disciplinary reasons”, hung over the performance. Wolfsburg pushed, they fought, they showed more offensive spark than in recent weeks, yet they lacked exactly the extra edge those two might have offered in the final third.
Consequences
The consequences are brutal. This defeat leaves Wolfsburg’s Bundesliga status dangling. They can no longer secure safety outright through the table; survival now runs through the trapdoor of the relegation play-off spot. At best, they cling to that position and brace for a two-legged fight to stay up. At worst, they tumble into the automatic relegation places.
Everything points to a fraught final day. A trip to St. Pauli, a winner-takes-all feel at the Millerntor-Stadion, and a season’s work condensed into 90 minutes under the sharpest pressure.
For Bayern, the night carried a very different tone. The champions had wrapped up the league on Matchday 30, the domestic job largely done, yet the season still carries a sense of unfinished business after European disappointment. This narrow, controlled win, built on second-half defensive authority and a flash of Olise brilliance, arrives as ideal preparation for the DFB-Pokal final against Stuttgart on May 23.
Kompany will particularly relish how his back line responded once in front: no late collapse, no chaos, just a professional closing out of a tricky away game. Bayern leave Wolfsburg with another victory, a clean sheet after the interval, and a clear shot at a domestic double.
Wolfsburg leave with something else entirely: a week to stew, to regroup, and to decide whether this squad has the nerve to keep the club in the Bundesliga when everything is on the line.
