Harry Kane scored a goal and set up another as Bayern Munich won 2-0 at Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday, going through to the Champions League quarter-finals 5-0 on aggregate.
Bayern were comfortable against last season’s unbeaten German champions, having already done the damage with a dominant 3-0 win at home in the first leg.
With the match scoreless at half-time, Leverkusen rolled the dice in search of the goals they needed but it was Bayern who struck, with Kane waltzing through to tap in a Joshua Kimmich cross early in the second period.
With Leverkusen again pushing forward, the visitors added a second in the 71st minute, Alphonso Davies slamming a clever Kane chip low and hard to double Bayern’s lead.
Kane, so often criticised for going missing in big games and scoring against the minnows, was again commanding, as he had been when scoring a brace in Munich.
The England captain showed finesse and physicality as he kept Bayern on track for a dream home final and a chance to exorcise the ghosts of their 2012 Champions League final loss to Chelsea.
Leverkusen showed spirit despite missing pivotal midfielder Florian Wirtz, but the scale of the task was too high.
Eight points behind Bayern in the league, Xabi Alonso’s likely last remaining chance for silverware this season is the German Cup, where Leverkusen are through to the final four.
A month after dominating the same opponents at the same venue but somehow failing to break through, Leverkusen hosted Bayern in drastically different circumstances.
Put to the sword in Munich in perhaps the poorest performance of Alonso’s 30-month reign six days earlier, Leverkusen needed to turn the tables on Bayern while lacking the injured Wirtz, their best player.
After criticism for his team selections in Munich, omitting in-form striker Patrik Schick and putting usual back-up goalkeeper Matej Kovar in goal, Alonso named the Czech up front and put captain Lukas Hradecky back between the sticks.
Bayern’s Vincent Kompany made only one change, with rookie goalie Jonas Urbig replacing injured veteran Manuel Neuer.
Kane signalled Bayern’s intent early, forcing Hradecky into acrobatic saves twice in the opening 15 minutes.
Leverkusen lacked Wirtz and a little fluidity but remained ambitious, with an animated Alonso repeatedly urging them forward from the sideline.
Schick, given a total of just 11 minutes in Leverkusen’s two previous matches, headed inches wide with 38 minutes gone, the hosts’ best chance of the opening half.
The second half brought more necessary risk for Leverkusen and Bayern sensed the blood in the water.
With 52 minutes gone, Kane got on the end of Kimmich’s lofted pass to kill off any remaining Leverkusen hope.
Kane then set up Davies to score inside the final 20 minutes, putting Bayern into the last eight and keeping his own personal quest for a team trophy alive on the biggest club football stage of all.
AFP
