Paris, March 12: Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid took giant strides toward the Champions League quarterfinals with big wins Tuesday. Liverpool and Barcelona still have work to do.
Bayern thrashed Atalanta 6-1 without top scorer Harry Kane in the starting lineup. And Atletico made under-pressure Tottenham coach Igor Tudor pay for his bold call to drop first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario by racing to a 3-0 lead inside 15 minutes. The Spanish giant eventually won 5-2.
Liverpool needs to overturn a 1-0 defeat to Galatasaray in next week’s second leg at Anfield and Barcelona needed Lamine Yamal’s penalty with the last kick of the game to rescue a 1-1 draw at Newcastle.
Even without the prolific Kane, Bayern all but sealed its place in the last eight with a dominant win at Atalanta.
England captain Kane has scored 47 goals this season for club and country but was only fit enough to make the bench and in his absence Michael Olise scored twice. Serge Gnabry and Nicolas Jackson each scored and set up goals. Josip Stanisic and Jamal Musiala were also on target for the German champion.
Tottenham endured a nightmare start in Madrid, with backup keeper Antonin Kinsky substituted in the 17th minute after his mistakes led to two of Atletico’s three early goals.
Spurs coach Tudor had opted to leave out first choice Vicario – a decision that backfired spectacularly. Kinsky was making his Champions League debut and his slip and miskick in the sixth gave Marcos Llorente the chance to open the scoring.
Antoine Griezmann made it 2-0 for Atletico before Kinsky miskicked again and Julian Alvarez slotted into an empty net.
Kinsky looked inconsolable when he was replaced by Vicario, who conceded just five minutes after coming on – Robin Le Normand scoring Atletico’s fourth.
“We knew how to take advantage of our opponents’ mistakes to gain a good lead, and now we go into the second leg with a three-goal advantage,” Alvarez said.
Spurs rallied, but it will take an unlikely comeback in the second leg to avoid elimination.
“We gave away three goals at the start, and then it became very difficult for us,” Tudor said.
According stats provider Opta, this was the first time in Tottenham’s history that it has lost six games in a row.