UEFA Champions League
Real Madrid come from two down to leave Liverpool in the pool of their blood!
Holders Real Madrid produced a stunning comeback from two goals down to earn a devastating 5-2 victory at a shell-shocked Liverpool in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie on Tuesday.
Two goals each from Vinicius Jr. and Karim Benzema turned what had looked like being an unpleasant evening for Real into a stylish romp that left Juergen Klopp’s side flat on the canvas and facing a monumental task to reach the quarter finals.
It was Liverpool’s heaviest home defeat in Champions League history, eclipsing a 3-0 loss to the same opponents in 2014.
In a re-run of last year’s final, the first half was played at a ferocious pace, with the hosts racing into a fourth-minute lead through a superb Darwin Nunez flick — the quickest goal Liverpool have ever scored at Anfield in the Champions League.
The stadium erupted 10 minutes later when an horrendous miscontrol from Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois let Mohamed Salah in for the second, with the Egyptian now Liverpool’s all time top goalscorer in European competition.
Yet just as they did on several occasions en route to their 14th European Cup crown last season, Real quickly turned things around, with Vinicius scoring one sublime strike and one fluke goal after another goalkeeping mistake to level the match by halftime.
A bullet Eder Militao header completed the turnaround for Real early in the second half, sapping all the life out of Anfield in the process.
The hosts’ misery was not done there, however, as Benzema’s double ensured Liverpool shipped five goals at home for only the third time this century in all competitions.
“It’s an important night for us, we showed personality and scored the goals we needed. We want this Champions League title,” Benzema told Movistar Plus.
“We struggled in the beginning, they started well, better than us, it was a big game. But we managed to turn things around. We are in a good position but football is tricky and we have to close the deal at home.”
Klopp said in the run-up to the match that he had been unable to rewatch last season’s final, which Real won 1-0, until this weekend, insisting doing so was torture, reliving how Liverpool had their chances to claim victiory in the Paris showpiece.
Fourteen minutes in at Anfield and some form of redemption seemed to be on the cards for the Liverpool manager.
First, Nunez darted onto Salah’s pinpoint pass and flicked the ball through his legs into the net, before the Egyptian’s record-breaking goal, from a mistake by Courtois, who was man of the match in the Paris final, made it two.
A player of Vinicius’s ability only needs one chance and a superb slotted finish from the edge of the penalty area started the comeback, before Alisson fired the ball at the Brazilian, with the rebound bouncing into the unguarded net.
The second half was a lesson in how to kill a game, and potentially the tie, from Real, who did not give Liverpool an inch and took their chances clinically.
Militao’s superb header from Luka Modric’s corner was unstoppable, but there was more than an element of fortune about the fourth as Joe Gomez deflected Benzema’s effort over the stranded Alisson.
Benzema’s second was expertly put away on the counter, as the Real striker coolly took his time to find the net and finish the hosts off. The Frenchman has scored six goals against Liverpool in the Champions League, more than any other player.
“It’s hard to sum it up straight after the game,” Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson told BT Sport.
“Mixed feelings. Frustration with the result. For large parts of the first half we performed well and were unlucky to be level at halftime. We made too many mistakes. Real Madrid punished us every time tonight.”
-Reuters
Spain’s LaLiga will be represented by at least five teams in the Champions League next season after Italy’s Lazio were eliminated from the Europa League on Thursday while Athletic Bilbao progressed to the semi-finals.
LaLiga earned the second of two European Performance Spots handed out by UEFA, which go to associations “with the best collective performance by their clubs” in UEFA competitions.
England’s Premier League was the first to secure an extra berth in Europe’s top competition, on top of the four granted to the top four teams in the domestic table.
Villarreal are fifth in the LaLiga standings, with 51 points from 30 matches.
They are three points ahead of sixth-placed Real Betis and eight in front of Celta Vigo and Mallorca, with all three clubs having played one more game than Villarreal.
-Reuters
Real Madrid’s record-breaking manager Carlo Ancelotti had no complaints after his side’s Champions League reign was ended in emphatic fashion by Arsenal in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Italian Ancelotti won a record-extending fifth Champions League trophy last season as Real beat Borussia Dortmund at Wembley, but his side went down 2-1 at home to Arsenal for a crushing 5-1 aggregate defeat.
“There are two sides to football, the happy part that has happened to us many times and the sad part we have to handle in the same way. It has happened to us fewer times than to other teams, but we have to manage it because it allows us to be better in the next games.”
When Real keeper Thibaut Courtois saved Bukayo Saka’s early penalty and minutes later Real were awarded a spot kick for a push by Declan Rice on Kylian Mbappe, it seemed that the great escape might still be a possibility.
But Real’s penalty was overturned after a lengthy VAR check, and in truth, they never looked remotely threatening as their bid for a 16th European Cup crown ended in feeble fashion.
“To change the dynamic, we needed something positive, like the penalty he whistled and then took off. We needed something to have more confidence, but we were not able to change the dynamic of the first leg,” Ancelotti said.
Despite the defeat, Ancelotti said Real’s season still has plenty of possibilities, not least trying to bridge a four-point gap to La Liga leaders Barcelona.
“Now we are in the fight for La Liga. We have a disadvantage, but we have the Barcelona game, we have the Copa del Rey final, the Club World Cup, and we have to manage this part, which is another part of football that we are not used to,” he said.
“It’s time to hold our heads high and learn from our mistakes. It’s sad today, but I have absolutely no worries about how my players will respond. We’ll fight on, we’ll learn from the experience, and we’ll try to be better for the next match.”
-Reuters
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Arsenal snuffed out any chance of a famous Real Madrid comeback to reach the Champions League semi-finals after a 2-1 victory in the Bernabeu Stadium completed a 5-1 aggregate win on Wednesday.
Holders and 15-time winners Real never looked like clawing back a 3-0 deficit from last week’s quarter-final first leg, and when Bukayo Saka scored for the visitors in the 65th minute, their fate was effectively sealed.
Vinicius Junior seized on a rare defensive slip a couple of minutes later to rouse the home crowd, but it proved too little too late as Carlo Ancelotti’s side exited feebly.
Arsenal’s superiority over the two legs was underlined in stoppage time as Gabriel Martinelli burst through to score.
They will face Paris St Germain in their first Champions League semi-final since 2009.
“I think it’s such a special night for this club, it’s a historic night for this club,” said Arsenal’s Declan Rice, whose two sublime free kicks put his side in control last week.
“There was a lot of talk coming in about them coming back from the dead, they’ve done it so many times before. But we had so much belief and confidence from that first leg that we had enough to come here and win the game.”
A cacophony of noise greeted kickoff with the home fans fuelled by the hope of witnessing what would have been one of the greatest Champions League comebacks.
But Real’s knack of extricating themselves from difficult positions in a competition they won six times in the previous 11 seasons deserted them as they were comprehensively outplayed.
“Did we fall short of what we wanted in pure football terms? Perhaps,” Real captain Lucas Vazquez said. “They really are terrifically organised defensively.”
PENALTY MISS
Real needed a storming start, and Mbappe had the ball in the Arsenal net in the opening minutes but was offside when chesting in a Vinicius cross.
Arsenal were in no mood to simply sit and protect their lead, though, and Saka forced a great save from Courtois. They were handed the chance to kill off the tie when Raul Asencio needlessly hauled down Mikel Merino from a corner, and referee Francois Letexier eventually awarded a penalty after checking a pitch-side VAR monitor.
Saka opted for a Panenka-style chipped penalty, and Courtois clawed away the ball.
It looked like a potentially pivotal moment, and when Letexier pointed to the penalty spot at the other end after Kylian Mbappe tumbled under minimal contact from Rice, Arsenal’s night looked like taking a turn for the worse.
After five painstaking minutes, however, Letexier was again invited by VAR to view the monitor and to a chorus of whistles from the home fans, overturned his original decision.
That scare aside, Arsenal coped easily with Real Madrid’s famed frontline who were given little to work with.
Arsenal keeper David Raya was not required to make a save before halftime as Real’s predilection for hopeful crosses into the area proved easy pickings for the visiting defence.
Real’s Mbappe barely had a sniff of a chance as Arsenal showed great control and Saka made up for his first-half miss with a clinical finish after being sent clear by Merino.
William Saliba gifted Real a lifeline when he was caught in possession on the edge of his area, allowing Vinicius to score, but there was never any sense of panic in the visiting ranks.
Martinelli put the icing on the cake in added time, again from a Merino assist, to send Arsenal’s fans into raptures.
-Reuters
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