Barca sees off City to join PSG in elite last 8
Print Edition
FOUR-TIME Champions League winner Barcelona of Spain and French champion Paris Saint-Germain suffered few problems in reaching the quarterfinals of this season’s competition on Wednesday.
Barcelona — which had come into its game on the back of some poor league form — beat Manchester City, which had Pablo Zabaleta sent off, 2-1 for a 4-1 aggregate victory.
While Barcelona’s win saw it join domestic rival Atletico Madrid in the last eight, City became the second English side in two nights to bow out, Arsenal having exited on Tuesday.
Lionel Messi opened the scoring for Barcelona at the Nou Camp with his eighth Champions League 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 the quarterfinals for the seventh successive season.
While victory will ease the pressure on Barcelona boss Gerardo Martino, defeat for City will increase demands for manager Manuel Pelligrini to deliver the Premier League title, as this latest setback came four days after it was knocked out of the domestic FA Cup by second-tier Wigan Athletic.
PSG, which Barcelona beat in last season’s quarterfinals, kept alive its 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 its sixth successive win.
Blanc was not impressed by the overall performance. “PSG were clearly not brilliant tonight. I expected more, but the essential is there, we are through.”
Leverkusen missed a penalty through captain Simon Rolfes and also ended up with just 10 men as Emre Can was sent off.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
