STUTTGART, Germany, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Bundesliga top scorer Harry Kane scored a hat-trick after coming on as second-half substitute to guide Bayern Munich to a 5-0 victory over hosts VfB Stuttgart on Saturday.
The Bavarians, who have opened up an 11-point lead at the top, were a goal up but struggling against the aggressive hosts until the introduction of Kane on the hour mark. Stuttgart were also left with 10 men for the last 10 minutes following the dismissalof Lorenz Assignon.
Kane has now scored a total of 58 goals for club and country so far in 2025, more than he has ever scored before in a calendar year as a professional with his previous best being 56 in 2017.
"It's something I'm not used to, but I did it a couple of times this season," Kane said of his substitute role, with Bayern coach Vincent Kompany eager to give his star striker some rest amid a busy match schedule.
"The boss wanted to keep me fresh and save energy. I came on after 60 minutes with a couple of other guys and we were able to exploit the space and get the goals," said Kane, who is preparing to lead England's attack at next year's World Cup.
"We had a tough battle in the (German) Cup mid-week and today we faced one of the best teams in the league away, but we looked stronger in the last half an hour and punished them." Bayern battled past Union Berlin 3-2 in the German Cup round of 16 on Wednesday.
Bayern, who host Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League on Tuesday, were lucky to go into the break with a one-goal lead thanks to Konrad Laimer's 11th minute strike.
Stuttgart first saw Nikolas Nartey's header that went in ruled narrowly offside and Chema also came agonisingly close to scoring in stoppage time.
Deniz Undav, who has scored six of Stuttgart's last eight goals as he battles to reclaim his Germany spot ahead of next year's World Cup, came even closer with a powerful shot in the 59th that Bayern keeper Jonas Urbig tipped over the bar.
The introduction of Kane , however, tipped the balance in the visitors' favour and the England captain opened his account with a crisp, low drive in the 66th.
Stuttgart keeper Alexander Nuebel then let Bayern substitute Josip Stanisic's weak shot slip through his hands to make it 3-0 and to make matters worse, Bayern earned an 80th minute penalty following a handball and red card for Assignon, and Kane easily converted it.
The forward completed his hat-trick from a Michael Olise cutback in the 88th to take his league tally to 17 goals and lift the Bundesligaleaders to 37 points, 11 ahead of second-placed RB Leipzig, in action against Eintracht Frankfurt later.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
