Goals…Goals…Goals galore. Let’s summarize the second leg of the Round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League clash between Bayern Munich and RB Salzburg in a few words. The Bavarians rained goals at the Allianz Arena in Munich, and RB Salzburg were crushed with the German Domination.
Bayern Munich were relentless on Tuesday night, hammering Red Bull Salzburg 7-1 in the second leg and progressed to the quarterfinals with an aggregate score of 8-2.
Robert Lewandowski grabbed the earliest hat-trick in Champions League history with three goals by the 23rd minute. In the first half, Bayern scored four goals and put an end to the dreams of RB Salzburg.
On his 100th start in the competition, the Poland captain confidently stroked home two penalties inside 21 minutes, after twice being recklessly brought down by Salzburg defender Maximilian Wober. After Ronaldo (seven) and Messi (five), Lewandowski is now only the third player to score ten or more goals in three or more different Champions League campaigns.
It was the earliest hat-trick ever scored by a player in UEFA Champions League history from the start of a match, overtaking Marco Simone for Milan v Rosenborg in 1996 (24 mins).
Serge Gnabry scored the fourth goal for Bayern in the first 45 minutes after the Austrian club gave away the ball cheaply.
The goals continued coming in the second half as Thomas Muller made it five in the 54th minute.
Maurits Kjaergaard managed to pull one back for Salzburg with a powerful shot that beat Manuel Neuer at his near post.
Bayern didn’t had any plans to stop scoring as Muller got his second and their sixth in the 83rd minute before Leroy Sane got the game’s final goal with just their ninth attempt on target in the 85th.
The result marked the second time in Bayern Munich history they scored seven goals in a UCL knockout round match, the other being their infamous 8-2 win over FC Barcelona in the 2020 quarterfinals.
The Bavarians thrashed the hopes of RB Salzburg to qualify for the quarter-finals after making the first knockout round appearance for an Austrian side in Champions League history.
Players’ Reactions:
“This was a statement, an exclamation mark,” Neuer said after the match. “We started well and presented ourselves differently from recent weeks. That gives you hope that this will go on. You could see from the start that we had a good attitude.”
“The game was of huge importance for us,” Muller said. “Had we been eliminated today we would have faced three sad months, and people would be rightly questioning things.”
