Real Madrid, PSG advance, Bodø/Glimt fairytale run ends

AP:

Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain quickly snuffed out hopes of epic comebacks by Manchester City and Chelsea in the Champions League yesterday.

Instead, it was tiny Bodø/Glimt on the receiving end of a historic second-leg fightback in the round of 16.

Protecting three-goal leads from the first leg, Madrid won 2-1 at City — helped by an early red card to City captain Bernardo Silva — through two goals from Vinícius Júnior to advance 5-1 on aggregate and defending champions PSG scored twice in the first 14 minutes on the way to a 3-0 victory at Chelsea. That sealed an 8-2 aggregate success.

Bodø/Glimt, the Norwegian club from a fishing town of around 55,000 people north of the Arctic Circle, also had a 3-0 lead from the first leg but were blown away 5-0 by Sporting Lisbon after extra time.

There has only been one bigger comeback in the Champions League: Barcelona’s storied “Remontada” against PSG in 2016-17.

Sporting’s reward is a quarterfinal matchup with Arsenal, who beat Bayer Leverkusen 2-0 for a 3-1 aggregate win and kept alive their hopes of a quadruple of trophies this season.

Red card damages City comeback bid

It is the fourth time in five years that Madrid have eliminated City from the Champions League, and this one was realistically over when Silva was shown a red card in the 20th minute — after a video review — for sticking out his elbow on the goal-line to block a shot from Vinícius.

The Brazil star tucked away his penalty to give Madrid a four-goal cushion and applied a close-range finish in second-half stoppage time to secure victory on the night for the record 15-time European champions.

Erling Haaland equalised in the 41st minute for City, who created enough chances — even with 10 men — to score the goals required.

Kylian Mbappé entered as a second-half substitute to mark his return from nearly a month out injured. Madrid will hope the France striker stays injury-free before a quarterfinal against either Bayern Munich or Atalanta. Bayern lead 6-1 from the first leg.

PSG gain belated revenge over Chelsea

Call it belated revenge.

Eight months after losing the Club World Cup final to Chelsea, PSG inflicted a huge two-legged beating of the English team with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Bradley Barcola, and Senny Mayulu scoring the goals at Stamford Bridge.

PSG will continue their title defence against either Galatasaray or Liverpool in the quarterfinals. Galatasaray won the first leg 1-0.

Eze wonder goal keeps Arsenal rolling

On an otherwise tough night for English clubs, Arsenal ensured that there will be Premier League representation in the last eight.

Eberechi Eze swivelled to fire home a rising shot from the edge of the area before Declan Rice added a second at Emirates Stadium.

Top of the Premier League by nine points, Arsenal are in the final of the English League Cup — they play Man City on Sunday — and the quarterfinals of the FA Cup, where they will be huge favourites against second-tier Southampton.

A quadruple should definitely not be ruled out.

Bodø/Glimt hcharms football world

The Bodø/Glimt fairy tale is over — but only after an unlikely streak of wins that has charmed the world of football.

After beating Man City and Atlético Madrid in the final two rounds of the league stage to squeeze into the playoff round, the northernmost team ever to play in the Champions League defeated Inter Milan — last season’s runners-up — home and away to advance to the round of 16.

Winning 3-0 in their 8,000-capacity Aspmyra stadium last week didn’t prove enough against Sporting, who dominated throughout the return match and scored through Gonçalo Inácio, Pedro Gonçalves, and Luis Suarez to take the game to extra time.

There, Uruguay left back Maxi Araújo scored in the 92nd minute to put Sporting ahead on aggregate for the first time and Rafael Nel added a fifth in stoppage time.

“People thought it was almost impossible,” Araújo said, “but we showed that we believed in ourselves and turned it around. We played a perfect game.”