MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Bundesliga record signing Harry Kane scored twice in his first league appearance in front of a home crowd on Sunday to steer champions Bayern Munich to a 3-1 victory over Augsburg and make it two wins out of two matches.
Kane, who joined for a league record 100 million euros ($108 million) from Tottenham Hotspur and also scored in last week’s league-opening 4-0 win at Werder Bremen as well as setting up another, got on the scoresheet with a 40th-minute penalty before adding their third goal in the 69th.
Kane, whose wife had their fourth child this week, has hit the ground running since his arrival in Munich just over two weeks ago and has now become only the third Bayern player to score three times in his first two league games and the first since Adolfo Valencia in 1993.
The striker was brought in to improve Bayern’s scoring after struggling since the departure of Robert Lewandowski last year, and allow them to challenge for the Champions League once more.
Despite their second straight league win coach Thomas Tuchel was not happy with his team’s overall performance, especially after a sluggish first half.
“Here on home soil we have not played as freely as we know we are capable of,” Tuchel told a press conference. “We are still not producing the level of performances that we are producing in training.”
“We have problems with our pace and the way we are fighting on home soil. Sometimes you need a bit of a lucky goal like the first.”
“Once we scored a second we were calmer. In the second half we were more precise and more clinical.”
Bayern had their opponents on the backfoot from the start but chances were few and far between.
It was not until Augsburg’s Felix Uduokhai deflected a save by his own keeper onto the post and over the line for an own goal in the 32nd that the Bavarians went in front.
They doubled their lead with Kane’s well-struck penalty, awarded for an Augsburg hand ball, and upped the pressure after the break, hitting the woodwork with Leroy Sane.
The England captain then completed a lightning quick passing move with a fine finish to take his league tally to three goals and put the game to bed.
Man-of-the-match Kane came close to a hat-trick when left unmarked in the box but his header shortly before the final whistle flew wide.
Augsburg did manage to cut the deficit in the 86th when they caught the Bayern defence napping and Dion Beljo rounded keeper Sven Ulreich.
Bayern are on six points, as many as Union Berlin, Bayer Leverkusen, VfL Wolfsburg and Freiburg.