Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday held their nerve to beat Liverpool 4-1 on penalties and reach the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals after their tie finished one-apiece on aggregate, while Bayern Munich saw off Bayer 04 Leverkusen to complete a 5-0 win over both legs.
Lamine Yamal and Raphinha fired Barcelona into the next round as the Catalans bested SL Benfica 3-1, and Inter booked a last-eight meeting with Bayern by seeing off Feyenoord 2-1.
At Anfield, Ousmane Dembele netted the only goal of the night as PSG bounced back from Liverpool’s late winner last week to force the tie to extra-time and penalties.
Photo: Reuters
Maligned for his weak attempted save at the Parc des Princes from Harvey Elliott’s strike, Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma produced two excellent saves in the penalty shoot-out to send the French champions into the last eight.
Donnarumma plunged first to his left to deny Darwin Nunez, before going low the other side to deny Curtis Jones, with his teammates dispatching all of their penalties.
“It was a great performance. We really deserved to go through over the two legs, hands down,” PSG captain Marquinhos told Canal Plus.
The hosts dominated the opening exchanges, but could not make their chances count, much like PSG in last week’s return fixture.
Dembele poked home in the 12th minute after he reacted quickest to Ibrahima Konate’s attempt to clear a PSG counterattack in the Liverpool penalty box.
Jarell Quansah hit the post with a header in the second half, but PSG held firm under Liverpool pressure to claim the second leg 1-0.
The tie rumbled inevitably toward penalties and after Donnarumma’s heroics, Desire Doue slammed home the decisive penalty to spark wild celebrations in the visitors’ end.
“It was the best game of football I have ever been involved in,” Arne Slot told Amazon Prime. “It was an incredible performance, especially if you compare it with last week. We were creating chances and then we were 1-0 down. We ran out of luck after last week.”
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Arne Slot has denied that Darwin Nunez was dropped from Liverpool’s win against West Ham because of a training-ground row with a member of his coaching staff. The Liverpool head coach on Sunday last week said that Nunez was absent from the 2-1 victory at Anfield, having felt unwell during training the day before, although the striker sat behind the substitutes throughout the game. Speculation has been rife that the Uruguay international, whom Slot criticized for his work rate against Wolves and Aston Villa in February, was left out for disciplinary reasons. Asked on Friday to clarify the situation, Slot said: “He