Luis Suarez was at his best as he scored two fine goals in a 3-1 victory at the Parc de Princes while Porto sent Bayern home crying with an identical scoreline.
Paris Saint-Germain, without the mercurial Zlatan Ibrahimovic and midfielders Marco Verratti and Thiago Motta were always going to find it tough to beat the La Liga toppers and the Spanish giants showed their class in a superb away win. Neymar opened the scoring in the 18th minute after he timed his run from the left flank and was fed by Messi to calmly hit the ball into the bottom right past Sirigu. A few minutes later, injured captain Thiago Silva had to make way for David Luiz. Barcelona were controlling the game and a brilliantly executed offside-trap in the 33rd minute was a testimony to this fact. Luis Suarez was threatening throughout the game and when David Luiz tried to fend the Uruguayan off, Suarez just sent Luiz tumbling and all of a sudden had the ball at his feet. But support didn’t arrive and he curled the ball into the top-right for an easy save for Sirigu. Cavani looked off-color throughout the match and was caught blatantly offside in the dying moments of the first-half.
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PSG were living life dangerously as the second-half began and had it not been for some over-the-top and wasteful shots by the Barcelona men, the deficit could’ve increased tremendously. Suarez finally got his goal in typical fashion as he nutmegged David Luiz at the right flank, cut inside Marquinhos, held off Maxwell and coolly finished past the scrambling Sirigu. A minute later Cavani, who was having a torrid night, slammed a vicious strike right into the bottom left, after a headed clearance fell into his path and ter Stegen was forced to make a save. Barcelona seemed content with the result and in the 73rd minute, Messi went on a marauding run, twisting and turning past the hapless Paris defence but his left-footed shot was wild and erratic and the home supporters breathed a sigh of relief.
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But their relief was short-lived, when Suarez scored his second, nutmegging David Luiz (again!) and curled the ball into the top-right over the helpless Sirigu. 80 minutes gone and 3 goals behind, PSG were desperate to at least get one back and substitute Mathieu aided his hosts in doing so, when he unwittingly sliced the ball over ter Stegen after van der Wiel’s rather weak shot/pass. In the 89th minute Cavani missed an inviting chance to score, when Lavezzi was tripped by Adriano in the box and the ball fell kindly for Cavani to smash it home but the Uruguayan only managed to hit it right at Mathieu, who came sliding in. It finally boiled down to a contest between two Uruguayans and the former-Liverpool man was undoubtedly the better man. PSG have a mountain to climb when they visit Camp Nou next week and having conceded three away goals, one can say it’s a bridge too far.
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Bayern Munich visited an unpredictable Porto side at the Estadio do Dragao without their talismanic duo, Robben and Ribery. Despite the injury crisis, Bayern should’ve seen this throught but were in for a nasty shock when they were 2-0 down in the first ten minutes. Manuel Neuer, the world’s best goalkeeper, seemed to having a rare off day in the office when he tripped Jackson Martinez in the penalty box in the opening 90 seconds. Martinez snatched the ball at the edge of the box from Alonso and was clear on goal and in usual fashion attempted to skip past the incoming ‘keeper but Neuer stopped his run with an unimpressive foul, tripping the Columbian striker. The German was shown yellow and Ricardo Quaresma sent him the wrong way with a confident penalty.
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Neuer was quite lucky to stay on the pitch but it was too get worse for Neuer and Bayern. This time Dante was robbed off the ball by Quaresma with 40 yards between him and goal, the Portuguese winger poked the ball past the Neuer. Porto’s front three continued to put pressure on the Bayern back four but the two centre-backs seemed to have regained their composure after two horror goals. And Jerome Boateng, Dante’s partner provided the assist to Thiago’s goal. A corner was played short and Boateng zipped in a cross to across the Porto defence and somehow met Thiago, making his first Champions League start in over a year, who managed to touch it past ‘keeper Fabiano. A comeback seemed on the cards but Porto were attacking relentlessly and Neuer was quite busy keeping the attacking trio of Brahimi, Martinez and Quaresma at bay although Bayern were keeping most of the possession.
Bayern were frustrated by Porto and nothing seemed to be working for the Bavarians and Thiago seemed to be the only player on top form. And the night got worse for Pep Guardiola’s men, when Boateng fluffed a hopeful long ball from the Porto half and Martinez controlled the ball brilliantly with his right foot and pranced past Neuer and smashed the ball into an empty net. Unquestionably, Bayern’s worst performance of the season, there was no way back for them. Porto scraped through the rest of the game and Bayern were just hoping for it to all end. Despite the humiliation, Bayern still have a huge chance to progress, given the fact that they have scored an away goal, both Porto full-backs are suspended and most importantly, the second leg is in the Allianz Arena.
Tags: Barcelona Bayern Munich Porto PSG
