Harvey Elliott’s late goal 47 seconds after coming on helped Liverpool to a stunning smash-and-grab win as they beat Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 in the first leg of their Champions League round-of-16 tie.
Arne Slot’s side faced 27 of the game’s 29 shots, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia having a stunning goal disallowed for offside and Ibrahima Konate fortunate not to be sent off, but the Premier League leaders stole it when Elliott swept home in the 87th minute.
Liverpool have accumulated many dominant wins under Slot this season, but one suspects they will cherish this even more. PSG produced enough to be a threat back at Anfield on Tuesday but they will surely feel they have missed their chance in Paris.
With a 13-point lead in the Premier League and having finished top of the league phase in this new Champions League format, Liverpool have a credible claim to be the best team in Europe right now. “We have to win it before you can say this,” argued Slot.
PSG, on a run of 10 wins on the bounce coming into this, seemed to agree, tearing into Liverpool and creating chance after chance in the first half. They needed Alisson at his best and a couple of close VAR calls to go their way to make it to the break still level.
Slot talked of PSG having “three fighter jets” in attack following the acquisition of Kvaratskhelia in the transfer window with Luis Enrique having gone on to see his team win every subsequent game in which his front three had started prior to this clash.
It was obvious why given the displays of both the Georgian and Ousmane Dembele. Kvaratskhelia was just offside when he curled the ball brilliantly into the corner. Bradley Barcola was then clearly shoved by Konate but the officials somehow missed it.
Raphinha was once again Barcelona’s hero as they claimed a narrow win over Benfica in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie, despite going down to 10 men.
The Brazilian capitalised on a defensive error to drive forward and slot in the bottom corner in the 61st minute, notching his 25th goal of the season and ninth in the Champions League campaign.
Raphinha also came to the rescue for five-time winners Barca in January when the two sides met in the league group phase, scoring a 96th-minute winner in a nine-goal thriller.
Meeting again at this knockout stage of the competition, Barcelona had to play with 10 men from the 22nd minute after teenager Pau Cubarsi brought down Benfica striker Vangelis Pavlidis on the edge of the penalty box but, as the last man, received a straight red card.
The Portuguese hosts thought they had a penalty in the 82nd minute after the otherwise faultless Wojciech Szczesny brought down Andrea Belotti, but the spot-kick was overturned for offside in the build-up.
Barcelona held on to take a narrow lead to the Camp Nou for the second leg on Tuesday 11 March.
Bayern Munich have one foot in the quarter-finals of the Champions League after a Harry Kane double helped them to comfortable win against 10-man Bayer Leverkusen in the first leg of their last-16 tie.
Kane gave the hosts an early breakthrough in the all-German meeting before Jamal Musiala doubled their lead by capitalising on a mistake from Leverkusen goalkeeper Matej Kovar.
The visitors went down to 10 men after a second yellow for Nordi Mukiele just past the hour mark, then Kane scored his 31st goal of the season from the penalty spot to seal the victory.
