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The big winners
Bodø/Glimt’s 2-1 defeat of Inter at San Siro continued this season’s miracle. The post-match discussion between Inter coach Cristian Chivu and his opposite number, Kjetil Knutsen, was one of admiration, an acknowledgment the Norwegian team had been too good for the runaway Serie A leaders. Even though Inter were without Lautaro Martínez, their standard bearer, a comeback seemed likely as they dominated the early stages. But they found no way through, eventually falling victim to the high-quality, high-speed attacking that had left them with a 3-1 deficit to overcome from the first leg.
“The hardest thing was to create an opening,” lamented Inter’s Nicolò Barella of the long spell of toil that preceded Jens Petter Hauge stabbing in his sixth goal in this season’s competition before Håkon Evjen completed a counter and sealed progress with a brilliant strike.
“We tried everything we could,” Chivu said. Like Manchester City and Atlético Madrid before them, Inter were dumbfounded by the team laying claim to be Scandinavia’s best since IFK Gothenburg picked up two Uefa Cups in the 1980s and reached the European Cup semi-final in 1986.
Galatasaray are into the last 16 after goals by Victor Osimhen and Barış Alper Yilmaz in extra time at Juventus. That tells nothing of the full story of a classic tie, which almost became a classic comeback. Probably the main reason Juve did not fully overturn their 5-2 first-leg deficit was the dismissal of Lloyd Kelly, a red card awarded by video assistant when the on-field official had already awarded a second yellow. How video officials reached that decision was mysterious, controversial; Kelly looked to have accidentally landed on Yilmaz. The Englishman initially believed VAR would come to his rescue but stormed down the tunnel. He missed out on the ecstatic scenes that followed Weston McKennie levelling the tie at 5-5. In injury time, though, Juve ran out of legs, counting the cost of a third red card in four matches.
In Wednesday’s earlier game, Atalanta had already preserved the dignity of Serie A with a 4-1 defeat of Borussia Dortmund. Atalanta trailed 2-0 from the first leg but perhaps we should have paid attention to a telling stat before kick-off: there has been an Italian team in the last 16 of the competition every season since 1987-88. In Bergamo, Mario Pašalić’s header put Atalanta 3-2 up on aggregate, only for Karim Adeyemi’s lovely goal to push the tie towards extra time. The denouement was bizarre: Dortmund defender Ramy Bensebaini was sent off after his studs caught the head of Atalanta’s Nikola Krstović in the penalty area as he attempted a backheel flick. Lazar Samardžić stepped up in the ninth minute of added time, with all Atalanta’s usual penalty takers subbed off, to score the spot-kick. He lashed it home to maintain the honour of Italian calcio.
José Mourinho has now lost his last 10 Champions League knockout ties. At Real Madrid, parking the Benfica bus did not prove a successful strategy. Although this time it was a literal bus: Mourinho, banned after his red card in the first leg, watched the second leg sat in the team coach. Benfica scored first at the Santiago Bernabéu against a rather languid Madrid through Rafa Silva, only to leave space for Aurélien Tchouaméni to score from distance. In the 80th minute, Vinícius Júnior scored the decider of an edgy match, issuing the final word on a tie that concluded with relative calm. The fallout from last week’s first leg, in which Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni was accused of racially abusing Vinícius, may continue for some time. “Mourinho and I were in contact and share the same feeling: frustration and pride,” said Benfica’s assistant coach, João Tralhão. Mourinho’s thoughts remain private. For now, at least.
Player of the week
It all came up Norway, as Alexander Sørloth, the one-time Bodø/Glimt loanee, scored the treble for Atlético Madrid that ended Club Brugge’s participation. Sørloth will probably partner Erling Haaland at the summer’s World Cup. The 30-year-old has a harsh journeyman reputation but his skillset has found its home within a Diego Simeone team undergoing a reboot. The hat-trick was Sørloth’s fifth goal in two matches, after a weekend double against Espanyol. They said it
“There are moments when you lose precision and it’s difficult to recover the level.” Luis Enrique breathed a sigh of relief after Paris Saint-Germain’s 2-2 draw with Monaco, who had Mamadou Coulibaly harshly sent off and missed a golden chance to level the tie when Wout Faes headed wide. As it was, the holders squeezed through 5-4 on aggregate. They remain unconvincing, and are yet to find the stride of last season.
The pundit’s chair
“Italian teams play at a slow pace. When they find teams that play press and run, they don’t have the quality, aren’t accustomed to playing at a high pace, and make mistakes … As soon as they increase the pace in Serie A, they are stopped because a challenge is too hard, a player’s ear is touched, and they go down. These are the results. We play at a slow pace, unfortunately, and when it happens, it’s hard to be dangerous.” Champions League-winning coach Fabio Capello, speaking after Inter’s exit on Sky Italia, diagnoses the Serie A malaise.
Looking ahead
Friday’s last 16 draw takes place in Nyon, Switzerland, and the playoffs, or “punishment round” as some insiders term it, have opened up some potentially huge ties. Paris Saint-Germain face either Barcelona or Chelsea. Galatasaray’s reward is one of Liverpool or Tottenham, whose interim coach Igor Tudor had a stint with the Turkish club.
Manchester City could face familiar foes: Real Madrid, with whom they have clashed plenty of times before in recent years, or Bodø/Glimt, who shocked them in January. There’s also the potential of an all-English tie in Newcastle v Chelsea, and an all-German one in Bayer Leverkusen v Bayern Munich.
