UCL round-up: Barcelona and Bayern win first leg ties

Sport360 staff 07:58 06/04/2016

Atletico Madrid were left to rue Fernando Torres’s first-half red card as Luis Suarez’s double handed Barcelona a 2-1 lead on Tuesday heading into the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final.

Torres got Atletico off to the perfect start as he slotted home Koke’s through ball for a vital away goal on 25 minutes, but saw two quickfire yellow cards to leave his side a man short for over an hour.

A second-half onslaught from Barca ensued and Suarez turned the game on its head as he bundled home to equalise before powering in a header for the winner 16 minutes from time.

The sides meet once more to decide who will progress to the semi-finals at Atletico’s Vicente Calderon on April 13.

Barca had been beaten for the first time in 39 games stretching back six months by Real Madrid on Saturday and were again far from their best as Atletico looked comfortable until Torres was given his marching orders 10 minutes before half-time.

Barca’s superstar front three of Messi, Suarez and Neymar then came to life as the hosts camped Atletico inside their own half for the final 40 minutes.

Atletico’s resistence lasted just over an hour until Neymar drilled Dani Alves’s cross goalwards and Suarez was on hand to bundle home his 44th goal of the season.

And his 45th followed 12 minutes later as he powered in another Alves cross to keep Barca on course to become the first side to ever retain the Champions League.

However, Atletico bravely limited the damage in the final stages to maintain their hopes of repeating their feat of dumping Barca out at the quarter-final stage two years ago.

Arturo Vidal gave Bayern Munich a slender 1-0 lead for their Champions League quarter-final return leg at Benfica next week, after hitting the winner just 109 seconds into Tuesday’s first leg.

Bayern produced an off-key display at Munich’s Allianz Arena and their fifth straight appearance in the Champions League semi-finals is far from assured.

Rui Vitoria’s Benfica can take plenty of heart before the second leg at the Estadio da Luz on Wednesday April 13, after subjecting Bayern to a frustrating second half in Munich.

However, the Portuguese league leaders will be without top-scorer Jonas after the 32-year-old picked up a second-half booking, his third of the tournament.

In the build-up, Bayern coach Pep Guardiola had described Benfica as having “perhaps the best back four” in Europe, after leaking just 19 goals in the Portuguese league this season.

But it took less then two minutes for Bayern to break the Benfica defence.

Franck Ribery crossed from the left and Juan Bernat, untroubled by the Benfica defenders, found Vidal in space to nod comfortably past Ederson.

Benfica failed to cope with Vidal’s late runs from midfield as he again got on the end of a cross with half-time approaching, but the ball bounced harmlessly onto the roof of the net.

Bayern have only themselves to blame for not doubling their tally in the dying stages.

Lewandowski got in behind the defence and drew Ederson, but his pass to an unmarked Philipp Lahm was too long, just a minute from the whistle.

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