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Robert Lewandoski
Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski scored three goals in the 23rd minute to record the earliest hat-trick in Champions League history as the Germans thrashed Salzburg 7-1 on Tuesday (March 8) to advance to the quarter-finals with an 8-2 aggregate score. The 33-year-old Poland striker scored three goals in 11 minutes, starting with two nearly identical penalties in the 12th and 21st minutes before scoring on the break two minutes later for his fifth hat-trick in the competition.
By the half-hour mark, Serge Gnabry had beaten beleaguered Salzburg goalkeeper Philipp Koehn with a low shot to make it 4-0, before a Thomas Mueller double and a Leroy Sane goal sealed the tie in the second half.
Bayern Munich
Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer stated, “This was a statement, an exclamation mark.”
Bayern, who have been erratic in the Bundesliga this season, have now scored seven or more goals in a Champions League game for the seventh time in their history. “We got off to a good start and portrayed ourselves in a different light than in previous weeks. That gives you optimism that things will continue like way. “You could tell we had a positive mindset right away,” Neuer remarked.
With his 104th appearance in the Champions League, the goalkeeper surpassed current club CEO Oliver Kahn as the Bayern goalkeeper with the most appearances in the competition.
Salzburg had two excellent chances early on and came agonizingly close to equalising in the 15th minute when Neuer, returning from a knee injury, made the stop of the game by tipping Nicolas Seiwald’s rocket over the bar.
Despite the fact that Salzburg had not conceded more than two goals in a meaningful match this season, they were unable to stop Lewandowski, who was in fine form. The Pole pushed defender Maximilian Woeber to fall for a penalty on two occasions before beating him on the rebound for his third goal.
After the intermission, Mueller spun superbly in the box to score the game’s fifth goal in the 54th minute. “For us, the game was extremely important,” Mueller added.
“Had we been eliminated today we would have faced three sad months and people would be rightly questioning things.”
Salzburg teenager Maurits Kjaergaard got a consolation for the visitors in the 70th minute with his first European goal. Mueller, however, bagged his second of the evening 13 minutes later before Leroy Sane completed the rout in the 86th.
“Today it was an opponent on a different level,” Salzburg defender Rasmus Kristensen said. “We had some chances but if you don’t make them count it’s difficult. It had nothing to do with attitude, focus or the match plan. They simply were better in all aspects – that’s it.”
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