Soccer Football - Champions League - Sparta Prague v Atletico Madrid - epet ARENA, Prague, Czech Republic - November 26, 2024 Atletico Madrid's Julian Alvarez in action with Sparta Prague's Tomas Wiesner REUTERS/David W Cerny/ File Photo
PRAGUE (Reuters) -Argentina forward Julian Alvarez and substitute Angel Correa scored two goals each while Marcos Llorente and Antoine Griezmann added to the feast as Atletico Madrid thumped hosts Sparta Prague 6-0 in the Champions League on Tuesday.
It was a commanding performance from the Spanish side, who earned their sixth successive win in all competitions with arguably their best performance of the season.
Atletico are ninth in the 36-team Champions League table with nine points from five games while Sparta Prague are 28th on four points.
Diego Simeone's Atleti dominated proceedings from early on at the Letna Stadion with Alvarez and striker Alexander Sorloth a constant menace, combining well up-front.
Sparta Prague's Kaan Kairinen wasted a great early chance after a Llorente mistake and they were punished as the visitors opened the scoring in the 15th minute when Alvarez curled a free kick from the edge of the box into the top corner.
Norway's Sorloth was denied a second goal when his strike was well saved by goalkeeper Peter Vindahl a few minutes later.
However, Llorente extended the visitors' lead just before the break with help from Sorloth, who played a clever dummy on his teammate's cross that ended up evading everyone, including the goalkeeper, as it bounced in at the far post.
Alvarez scored the third in the 59th minute, finishing off a counter attack that he started in Atletico's own half, playing a fine one-two with Giuliano Simeone before firing past the goalkeeper.
Griezmann came off the bench to score the visitors' fourth with a tidy finish from inside the box from an assist by Llorente in the 70th minute, before Correa twice struck late from inside the box to wrap up an easy win.
"A great game, lots of goals, so I'm very happy. We needed it," Alvarez told Movistar Plus.
"I was confident that I was going to score with that free kick, I think it was a great goal that opened the game and helped us to keep on winning.
"It was a matter of time and minutes to fit all the pieces together. Little by little the whole team is feeling better. We have to continue on this path and keep working. The group is doing very well so we're going for more."
(Reporting by Fernando Kallas; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Toby Davis)
