Arriving to face Juventus needing nothing less than a win, Bayern turned in easily their best display of the season just when it mattered, running up a fully merited 4-1 victory over the outclassed Italians to seal a place in the last sixteen of the Champions League.
The 27,994 full house at the venerable Stadio Olimpico in Turin saw David Trezeguet open the scoring with the home team’s solitary chance of a first half otherwise totally dominated by Bayern, whose penalty equaliser from Jörg Butt was the absolute minimum a courageous showing deserved. The outstanding Ivica Olic finally handed the visitors an overdue lead on 52 minutes and the men in red expertly held their lines for a spell, withstanding a brief spell of Juventus pressure before Mario Gomez applied the coup de grace with seven minutes remaining.
Sub Anatoliy Tymoshchuk added a stoppage-time fourth to give the scoreline a genuinely realistic look as Bayern leapfrogged their opponents to seal second place in Group A with ten points from their six matches, two ahead of Juve and six adrift of confirmed winners Girondins Bordeaux.
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