In their Champions League outing on Wednesday night, the Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich scored four goals against Benfica in the second half to keep up their successive wins of three games out of three Champions League games so far in Group E.
Former Manchester City winger Leroy Sane scored a brace in the 15 minutes opening the and closing the scoring.
Benfica’s substitute Everton headed in an own goal in the 80th and Robert Lewandowski bagged their third goal two minutes later.
The German side did not travel with their coach who was reported missing due to a flu-like infection and was represented by his assistants on the touchline.
Bayern Munich scored four goals in 15 minutes; Photo Credit – The Straits Times
In an interesting fixture, Bayern hit woodwork earlier in the game and had their two efforts disallowed, on the other hand Benfica were keeping up well with couple of opportunities to convert only to lose their gas after the 70th minute.
Yesterday’s win means that the Bavarians retains the top spot of Group E on nine points and Benfica stays second with 4 points.
Bayern who have not conceaded any goal so far in their knock-out stages have an unbeaten record of 20 consecutive Champions League away games.
Some 14 months after winning the Champions League title there, Bayern returned to Lisbon’s Da Luz stadium and went in search of an early goal with chances missed by Sane and Lewandowski.
Benfica gradually balanced things out and forced Bayern keeper Manuel Neuer, making his 100th appearance in the competition, to a fine save before Lewandowski put the ball in the net just before the break only to have his effort canceled for handball.
Benfica keeper Odysseas Vlachodimos then denied them two minutes after the restart, deflecting Benjamin Pavard’s powerful shot onto the post.
Leroy Sane scored a brace; Photo Credit – FotMob
Minutes later Bayern thought they had finally scored when Thomas Mueller tapped in on the rebound after a solo effort down the wing from man-of-the-match Kingsley Coman. But a VAR review ruled out the strike as Coman was deemed to be offside.
It was by no means one-way traffic with Neuer again making a superb stop in the 55th, palming a curled Diogo Goncalves shot wide with his left glove. Roman Yaremchuk also came agonizingly close, with his shot a little later sailing just wide of the far post.
But it was Sane who broke the deadlock, whipping his 70th-minute free-kick in before they scored three more times in a rampant finale to remain on course of a spot in the knockout stages.
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