Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane hopes that Tuesday’s 3-0 win over SS Lazio, which secured progress to the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals, would be a “turning point” in the club’s season.
Bayern went into Tuesday’s match having won just one of five games, a run that included losing the first leg 1-0 in Rome and also caused them to fall 10 points behind Bundesliga leaders Bayer 04 Leverkusen.
The run cost manager Thomas Tuchel his job, with the club and coach issuing a statement saying that he would end his contract early in the summer.
Photo: AFP
Kane, who has scored at a remarkable rate despite Bayern’s struggles, notched a brace in the win and now has 33 goals in 32 games in all competitions since joining Bayern in the summer last year.
Speaking to reporters after the victory while holding the man-of-the-match trophy and a schnitzel burger, Kane said he hoped it was “a turning point for the rest of the year.”
“If we perform like that in most games, we’re going to come out with a victory. It was a pleasing day,” the England international said. “It’s been a good season so far in terms of the goals, but as a team we know we can do better.”
“I’m trying to help that situation, the team are trying to help that situation, and I hope we can use this as a turning point to push on in the Bundesliga and see if we can put pressure on Leverkusen — and see who we can get in the next round of the Champions League,” he said.
Tuchel told Amazon Prime that he had injured himself during his pre-match motivational speech.
“I don’t know if the players know about it, they might have wondered why I sat for 90 minutes, but that’s why,” he said.
“We’ve got very big goals and the minimum goal for all of us is the quarter-final,” Tuchel, who won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2020-2021, told reporters.
Bayern veteran Thomas Mueller said qualifying for the last eight was “not salvation ... but a very important step” for the under-fire club.
The 34-year-old, who has at times called out his side’s struggles, told Amazon Prime the win showed the season was not over for the German champions.
“I’ve said it before — it’s not a complete shambles here, we’re sticking together off the pitch, we’ve just had a few footballing problems on it,” he said. “We know how important it was to progress today.”
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