It was a stroll to the quarter finals by four-time Champions League winners Barcelona and French champions Paris Saint Germain Wednesday night.
Both teams suffered few problems in reaching the next round of this season’s competition.
Barcelona — who had come into their game on the back of some poor league form — beat Manchester City, who had Pablo Zabaleta sent off, 2-1 for a 4-1 aggregate victory.
Lionel Messi opened the scoring for Barca with his eighth goal of the campaign before Vincent Kompany levelled just before the final whistle, but there was still time for Dani Alves to strike the winner as Barcelona qualified for their seventh successive quarter-finals.
PSG, who Barcelona beat in last season’s quarter-finals, kept alive their hopes of becoming only the second French side to win the trophy — after Marseille in 1993 — with a 2-1 win over German outfit Bayer Leverkusen for a 6-1 aggregate win.
Goals by Marquinhos and Ezequiel Lavezzi cancelled out Sidney Sam’s sixth minute opener to give Laurent Blanc’s side their sixth successive win in all competitions.
Leverkusen — who came into the match on the back of a run of five defeats and one draw in their last six games — missed a penalty through captain Simon Rolfes and, to round off a miserable experience, also ended the match with just 10 men as Emre Can was sent off for s second bookable offence.
On Tuesday holders Bayern Munich completed a 3-1 aggregate win over Arsenal with a 1-1 draw at home while Atletico Madrid’s 4-1 success against visitors AC Milan ensured a 5-1 overall scoreline.
City were looking to become the first side to come back from losing the first leg 2-0 at home in the Champions League era and they had chances to reduce the deficit as Victor Valdes denied Samir Nasri and Edin Dzeko either side of half-time.
However, Messi killed the tie as a contest with 23 minutes remaining as he pounced on a loose ball inside the area to flick home his eighth Champions League goal of the season.
The visitors were then reduced to 10 men as Pablo Zabaleta was shown a second yellow card for dissent after Dzeko looked to have a legitimate penalty claim waved away by French referee Stephane Lannoy.
City captain Vincent Kompany looked to have salvaged at least a draw on the night when he tapped home a minute from time, but Alves restored Barca’s lead from Andres Iniesta’s cut-back in stoppage time.
Kompany complained that the sending-off had been unfair and costly to City.
“We’ve got nothing left in the tank, we gave everything. A few times we could’ve scored and obviously that would’ve changed the game,” he told Sky Sports. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com