Premier League title rivals, Manchester City and Liverpool have both progressed to the final four of the Champions League. Manchester City will face historic team Real Madrid whilst Liverpool will have the tricky task of going up against underdogs Villareal. This now means that this year’s Champions League winners will either be Spanish or English.
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The match was a spectacle with both teams attacking the goal numerous times with a lot of goals being scored albeit some were disallowed by VAR. Liverpool didn’t start with their usual starting 11 whilst Benfica made sure that all their star players were on the pitch.
The match was very chaotic with both teams playing very intense football looking for goals. Benfica needed the win after losing the first leg 3-1 at home. The first goal of the game came in the 21st minute when young center back Ibrahim Konate headed the ball in from a corner to give Liverpool the lead in the night. Benfica surprised everyone when they equalized only 10 minutes after from a clinical finish from young attacker Gonçalo Ramos.
The second half started very well for the English side with Brazilian attacker Roberto Firmino scoring a brace before the 65th minute. With the aggregate score being 6-2 everyone thought the game was done but Benfica had other ideas. In the 73rd minute Ukrainian striker Roman Yaremchuk gave Benfica fans hope once again skipping past Liverpool keeper Alisson to score in an open net. The final goal of the game came in the 81st minute when young striker Darwin Nunez impressed everyone with a curling finish to equalize the game.
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What this game lacked in excitement in terms of chances it got in terms of tension. The game was very intense with both set of players fighting between each other numerous times throughout the ninety minutes. The game ended in a 0-0 draw which means that Manchester City will be in the semi-finals after beating Atletico 1-0 at home in the first leg.
The first half was very close between two teams as both weren’t attacking the opposite goal as much as people expected them to. It seemed like Atletico were trying to conserve energy to than go all out in the second half when the City players would be a bit fatigued. Manchester City had more of the chances to extend their aggregate lead in the first half.
As expected Atletico Madrid went all out in the second half with the Spanish champions utilizing their attacking players like Lemar, Felix and Griezmann much more. The Spanish side had many chances in the second half but weren’t clinical enough to score to send the match into extra time. As time passed the game got more intense and after a second yellow card was given to Atletico defender Felipe a massive brawl sparked out. The fighting even continued in the tunnel after the match ended.
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