Lokomotiv 1 Atletico Madrid 5 (agg 1-8): Fernando Torres bags two and Antoine Griezmann hits stunner in Moscow rout
Diego Simeone's men fire strong message to the Europa League as they beat the freezing conditions to thrash Russian side
FERNANDO TORRES was on target twice as Atletico Madrid beat the freeze and thumped Lokomotiv Moscow.
Despite leading 3-0 from the first-leg, the La Liga giants sent a message of their intent to win the Europa League by hammering their opponents 5-1 on their own patch.
And you can bet that the other seven teams in the pot for tomorrow’s quarter-final draw will all be praying they avoid Diego Simeone’s side in the next round.
Despite the ice cold conditions in the Russian capital, Atletico quickly-warmed to the contest and and took the lead on 16 minutes.
After dribbling his way through the Lokomotiv defence, Angel Correa rifled a low drive into the bottom left corner.
But the hosts reacted fast and moments later they found themselves level courtesy a 30-yard rocket from their Polish full-back Maciej Rybus.
It remained one-apiece until the break, but the Atletico machine kicked into overdrive after the restart as they regained the lead two minutes in.
Saul Niguez played a quick one-two with Filipe Luis before fizzing a strike past goalkeeper Anton Kochenkov.
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Then it was the turn of former Liverpool and Chelsea striker Torres, 33, to shine.
Antoine Griezmann darted into the box and was sent tumbling to the ground by the arm of Kochenkov.
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That allowed Torres to place the ball on the spot and fire home for his first goal since January 28.
And after hitting the target, the veteran clearly had a thirst for more, and just five minutes later he added another to his and Atletico’s tally.
Angel Correa produced some magic as danced forward before poking the ball to Torres.
The Spaniard, who found himself in plenty of space, kept his cool to side-foot into the right-hand corner.
Lokomotiv had run out of steam and were desperate for their misery to come to an end.
But there was more pain in store for them as Griezmann capped a fine cameo from the bench with an outrageous fifth in the dying stages.
Correa pulled off a lovely flick and beat Rybus on the edge of the area before playing it back to the Frenchman.
The home defence quickly got out and closed him down the 26-year-old, but he chipped a sensational effort over them and Kochenkov and into the back of the net to complete the rout.
Atletico will discover their opponents for the quarters tomorrow when the draw is made in Nyon, Switzerland at around midday.
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