It was virtually over after the first leg in Bergamo with Bayern Munich having thrashed Atalanta 6-1 at the New Balance Arena and the Bundesliga champions picked up right where they left off in the return leg, winning 4-1 on the night and 10-2 on overall aggregate. Vincent Kompany was able to make a small handful of rotations for leg two from the side that dominated in Italy and thankfully for the Belgian manager Jonas Urbig was deemed fit enough to start in goal after recovering from a concussion
from the first leg.
A brace from Harry Kane and goals from Lennart Karl and Luis Díaz rounded out the scoring at the Allianz Arena on a night that was routine for the German Rekordmeister, slightly easing away some of the frustrations from the weekend’s controversial, drama-filled 1-1 draw at Bayer Leverkusen. As was the case in Bergamo, a late Atalanta goal was nothing more than a consolation, but yet another stain in Bayern’s attempts to record a clean sheet.
For Bayern, yet another pair of dates with Real Madrid looms large for the Champions League quarterfinals and the two sides will have two more chances to add to what’s already an incredibly rich, stoic, and illustrious history of matches against one another in European competition.
After the second leg win over Atalanta, Kompany was asked who he’s currently fancying as his favorite to win the Champions League, but he played coy and didn’t want to answer the question directly. After the round of 16, there’s a great deal of discussion amongst pundits across Europe that Bayern and Real Madrid are current frontrunners, but now only one of them will make it beyond the quaterfinals. “I don’t know. I don’t want to decide that now in a press conference. It’s up to you to decide. Both teams have so much quality. I hope we’ll have a positive game for the fans. Real Madrid is the best team in the history of the Champions League, so it’ll be a nice task for us. We want to win,” Kompany replied when he was pressed on the matter (via @iMiaSanMia).
With the evidence on display, it’s certainly hard to argue Bayern or Real Madrid aren’t favorites to lift the trophy in Budapest, though Arsenal are currently the odds on favorites to win according to most of the major betting outlets via Oddschecker. After the most recent performances in the return legs, Bayern are right behind Arsenal, though, with Barcelona the third highest odds to win it all.
