Rome: Bayern Munich advanced a step towards the next round, with a 4-1 thrashing of Lazio in their last-16 first leg in Rome on Wednesday (February 24). Robert Lewandowski opened the scoring and also became the Champions League’s third top-scorer of all time.
The Polish striker pounced on a poorly judged back pass after just nine minutes to finish off his 72nd goal in the competition. Hence he surpassed former Real Madrid striker Raul in the competition scoring charts and reached a total only bettered by Cristiano Ronaldo (134 goals), and Lionel Messi (119).
Jamal Musiala who is just 17 years of age, doubled the advantage with a properly executed strike on 24 minutes, making him the youngest English player to score in the competition. Leroy Sane tapped in the third goal before the break on 42 minutes and Francesco Acerbi scored an own goal that stretched the visitors’ advantage early in the second half on 47 minutes.
Joaquin Correa soon pulled one back for Lazio on 49 minutes, whose unbeaten run in the competition came crashing to an end. “We attacked Lazio from the start,” said Bayern captain Manuel Neuer.
“I liked our intensity, we showed our best face, different from what we’ve shown recently in the Bundesliga. We’ve certainly made our lives easier for the second leg.”
“We knew beating Bayern was difficult,”said Lazio midfielder Lucas Leiva.”But we helped them by how we played. This isn’t the Lazio that we know, it was a difficult night.”
“We need to learn from this defeat and take the experience, then we’ll go to Munich to play with pride and mentality.”
