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Rampant Bayern too good for Moscow

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MUNICH, Germany -- Bayern Munich awoke from a first-half slumber to secure a 4-0 win over Spartak Moscow in their Champions League Group B opener on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a brilliant goal from midfielder Marco Caneira gave Sporting a 1-0 win over a 10-man Inter Milan in the other group match.

After a dreadful opening half in Munich, Claudio Pizarro put Bayern ahead in the 48th minute, taking a long ball from Willy Sagnol and smacking his shot inside the post.

Four minutes later Roque Santa Cruz doubled the lead after taking Mark van Bommel's pass, Bastian Schweinsteiger made it 3-0 with a beautifully controlled volley in the 71st and Hasan Salihamidzic tapped in with six minutes to go.

Spartak had made things difficult for Bayern in the first half, twice almost snatching the lead through Roman Pavlyuchenko and Clemente Rodriguez on the counter-attack.

Bayern won the Champions League as recently as 2001 but the club now regard themselves as outsiders in Europe, unable to compete with richer teams from Italy, England and Spain.

They certainly played like lightweights in the first half against Spartak, back in the Champions League after a three-season absence.

When Lukas Podolski, Schweinsteiger and Owen Hargreaves made a mess of a free kick chance 10 minutes before the break -- with Podolski managing to miss the ball altogether -- it brought howls from the crowd and summed up the half pretty well.

Immediately after Bayern's free-kick fiasco, Spartak broke down the left and Pavlyuchenko forced Oliver Kahn into a fine save at his near post.

A few minutes later Mozart set Rodriguez running into space and his shot across goal drifted just wide.

Bayern came out for the second half with renewed vigour and were soon in front thanks to Sagnol's perfect 40-meter pass down the right and Pizarro's canny finish back inside the keeper's left-hand post.

Van Bommel, bought as a replacement for Michael Ballack, had looked lost in the first half but he redeemed himself with a clever pass that set up Santa Cruz for a neat finish for the second goal.

Spartak briefly roused themselves but the game was soon up as Schweinsteiger showed great technique to lean back and volley home from the edge of the box, after Salihamidzic had picked him out with a cross.

Salihamidzic turned in a shot from Podolski for the fourth and in the closing minutes Kahn pulled off a point-blank save from Vladimir Bistrov to cap a fine evening for the German champions.

Vieira off as Inter are beaten

In Lisbon, Caneira scored in the 64th minute. He chested down a high crossfield ball from defender Tonel, touched it past Maicon and unleashed a dipping volley from outside the box that went in off the underside of the bar.

Goalkeeper Francesco Toldo leapt and managed to get a touch but failed to turn the ball over the crossbar.

The Italian side were reduced to 10 men after 68 minutes when Patrick Vieira was sent off for head-butting Brazilian striker Liedson, the France midfielder's second bookable offence.


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Claudio Pizarro was on target for Bayern as the German champions crushed Spartak.

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