ATLETICO MADRID REACHES ROUND OF 16
Three red cards, on-field brawls, countless chances and a flurry of late goals. A wild, win-or-bust match in the Champions League between Porto and Atletico Madrid had it all on Tuesday.
In the end, it was Atletico celebrating a place in the last 16 of Europe’s top club competition with a 3-1 win, emerging from a three-way fight for qualification in the final round of group games.
On a night when Ajax striker Sebastien Haller became an unlikely historymaker, Real Madrid finished top of its group, and Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi ran amok for Paris Saint-Germain, much of the focus on the next-to-last night of group play was on the Group B finale as three teams vied to be runner-up to Liverpool.
Porto started the night in second place, a point ahead of Atletico and AC Milan, which hosted Liverpool.
Milan wound up losing 2-1, meaning the winner of the allIberian match at the Estadio do Dragao would advance. It turned ugly, unsurprisingly given the stakes, with Porto having two players red-carded after Atletico had Yannick Carrasco sent off for swinging his arm around an opponent’s neck.
Atletico was outplayed for much of the game but was opportunistic in front of goal, with Antoine Griezmann scoring the 56th-minute opener at a corner and both Angel Correa and Rodrigo De Paul adding breakaway goals after the 90th minute.
It sparked wild celebrations on the touchline by Atletico’s famously passionate coach, Diego Simeone, and striker Luis Suarez, who was forced off injured after 13 minutes.
With its victory, Liverpool became the first English team to win all six of its group games in a single Champions League campaign.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola selected a strong lineup for the 2-1 loss at Leipzig despite his team being guaranteed as the Group A winner and in the middle of a busy domestic schedule.
It was a stroll for secondplace PSG in a 4-1 win over Club Brugge, with Mbappe scoring twice inside the first seven minutes and — at 22 years and 352 days — becoming the youngest player to reach 30 goals in the competition.
Messi added his own double, the first a curler from outside the area and the second a penalty, and has now scored against a record-extending 38 different teams in the Champions League.
Haller’s first season in the Champions League has been a historic one.
By converting an eighthminute penalty for Ajax in its 4-2 win over Sporting, the Ivory Coast striker became only the second player — after Cristiano Ronaldo in 2017-18 — to score in all six matches of a single group stage. He finished with 10 goals in total.
Ajax was already sure of winning Group C and finished on a maximum 18 points. Sporting had already secured second place.
In a match that determined which team finished top of Group D, Real Madrid beat Inter Milan 2-0 despite being without injured star striker Karim Benzema.
Toni Kroos and Marco Asensio, with a brilliant curler that flew in off the far post, scored the goals for the 13-time European champions.