Barca boot out City
PSG too score easy win, in Champions League quarters
Paris, March 13: Fourtime Champions League winners Barcelona and French champions Paris Saint Germain suffered few problems in reaching the quarter-finals of this season’s competition on Wednesday.
Barcelona — who had come into their game on the back of some poor league form — beat Manchester City, who had Pablo Zabaleta sent off, 2-1 for a 4-1 aggregate victory.
While Barcelona’s win saw them join domestic rivals 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 Barca 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 they were knocked out of the domestic FA Cup by Wigan.
PSG, who Barcelona beat in last season’s quarter-finals, kept alive their 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 their sixth successive win in all competitions.
Blanc was not impressed by the overall performance but he said it was mission achieved.
“PSG were clearly not brilliant tonight. I expected more, but the essential is there, we are through,” said the former France national coach.
Leverkusen — who came into the match on the back of a run of five defeats and one draw — missed a penalty through captain Simon Rolfes and, to round off a miserable experience, also ended the match with just 10 men as Emre Can was sent off for s second bookable offence.
— AFP