Barcelona’s fearsome attacking trio of Neymar, Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi all scored as they beat Arsenal 3-1 at the Camp Nou to book a quarterfinal spot after a 5-1 aggregate victory.
Neymar opened the scoring in the first half after latching onto a Suarez through ball, but Arsenal’s Mohamed Elneny curled in an excellent finish at the restart to spark life into the visitors.
Suarez, however, knocked the wind off Arsene Wenger’s men with a superb volley into the top corner from a Dani Alves cross to effectively eliminate Arsenal at the last-16 stage for a sixth consecutive season.
The talismanic Messi rounded off the scoring with a dink over David Ospina two minutes from time as the hosts extended their record-breaking unbeaten run to 38 matches in all competitions.
“We had our chances, but we couldn’t take them,” Wenger said. “But we have to say well done to Barcelona. They have two or three players who transfer normal life into art.”
Meanwhile, Bayern Munich staged a sensational comeback with two goals in extra time after battling back from two goals down to beat Juventus 4-2 on Wednesday and advance to the Champions League last eight with a 6-4 aggregate victory.
Substitutes Thiago Alcantara drilled in after 108 minutes and Kingsley Coman curled in their fourth goal as Bayern, who needed a 90th-minute equaliser from Thomas Mueller to force extra time after Robert Lewandowski had sparked a revival, kept up their treble hopes.
In a reverse of the first leg, Paul Pogba and Juan Cuadrado shot Juve to a two goal lead in the first-half, forcing Pep Guardiola’s men to dig deep to score twice in the second half.
“This was a game that affects your heart rate,” said Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.
“It was a very emotional game, a case of deja-vu but with a different outcome from the first leg. But it must be said that Juve are a bit unlucky to go out like that.”
It was a bitter defeat for last season’s runners-up Juve, who ran out of steam in extra time to leave domestic titles as their only potential silverware this season.
Comments
Post a Comment