Stats behind Bayern's mauling of RB Salzburg

RB Salzburg managed to hold strong against a superior Bayern side in the first leg of their Champions League Round of 16 matchup. However, they weren't able to do the same in the second leg.

Bayern Munich are having one of those incredible seasons that they have become accustomed to at this point, and they are rightfully one of the favourites to win the Champions League this season.

They sit atop of the Bundesliga by nine points and are on target to win it again, and in the Champions League, they won all six games in the group stage.

What Bayern have found so easy to do this year is score goals. In all competitions, they have scored 115 goals so far. Consider that we are still only at the start of March.

Everything was going fairly smoothly until they matched up against Red Bull Salzburg in the first leg of the Round of 16 at the Red Bull Arena in Salzburg.

Somehow, the power of home advantage gave Salzburg a boost, and the two sides walked with a goal each, meaning the tie was somewhat in the air heading into the second leg.

Only it wasn’t really, because there was most likely not a soul on earth who gave Salzburg a chance at the Allianz Arena.

And indeed, Bayern did go to demolish the Austrian side, beating them 7-1 on the night and 8-2 on aggregate.

The German side dominated the game and were impressive throughout. But just how good were they? 

We’ve looked at the stats behind their phenomenal game and displayed them for you here.

 

Quickest hat-trick in CL history

Robert Lewandowski has been an incredible high-rate scorer for the last three seasons now. This year might just become his most prolific, as with his hat-trick against Salzburg, he has now reached 40 goals for the season in all competitions. 

The most incredible part of his feat is that he got the hat-trick quicker than anyone else ever has in a Champions League game. 

His first was a penalty in the 12th minute, the second was another penalty in the 21st minute and the third was a tap-in after the Salzburg goalkeeper made a mess coming out of goal.

Admittedly, it wasn’t the best hat-trick, especially by his standards. But it's a hat-trick, nonetheless. And more impressively, he did it with the only 32 touches, the least number of touches for any player who played the full 90 minutes from both sides.

 

7 goals from 4.2 xG

Just to mention it again, Bayern have 115 goals this season. They have scored seven or more goals in a game three times this season. Once is crazy enough, three is a sign of an almost unstoppable team.

Bayern completely surpassed their expected goals total, as they have done multiple times this season.

They were marked to have 4.2 goals in the game, and they went out and got seven.

And before you take off two for the penalties, their non-penalty expected goals was 2.7. So they still greatly exceeded that.

 

72% possession

In both legs of the tie, Bayern dominated possession. In the first leg, they had 71% possession, this time it was 72% possession.

They had a total of 900 touches between the 16 players that took to the pitch in the game. That was over double the amount Salzburg had, which was 416.

The player with the most touches in the game was defender Benjamin Pavard, who had 144 touches.

 

88% pass accuracy

Another stat that Bayern improved on from the first leg. First time round, they had an 84% pass accuracy, with 590 passess made from 704 attempted.

The second leg saw them have an 88% pass accuracy rate, on 693 passes made from 786 attempted.

The player with the most passes in the game was, once again, Benjamin Pavard. He had a really impressive yet underrated game. 

He made 116 of his 124 attempted passes, a number that no one really came close to matching.

He also had the best pass accuracy for an outfield player who played the 90 minutes. Technically, Manuel Neuer had the best from anyone who played the full game, with a 97.7% pass accuracy. 

But Pavard takes the award for an outfield player, with a 93.5% pass accuracy. He also had nine progressive passes, which was joint-second most.

 

44% shot accuracy

Salzburg were at Bayern mercy from minute one, when they had a really good chance to score that was brilliantly saved by the keeper. After that, though, Bayern gave them practically no chance.

Bayern had, in total, 16 shots, with seven of them finding the target. That rate is improved from their 22 shots and nine on target from the first leg, which gave them a 44% shot accuracy rate.

From the seven shots on target they had, the Salzburg keeper managed to save two of them.