Barcelona are close to a place in the semi-finals after a 1-3 victory at Paris Saint Germain in the first leg of their quarter final! Laurent Blanc’s side won the tie when the two teams met in Paris in the group stage earlier in the season, but Messi hit the post before slipping the ball through for Neymar to open the scoring with just under twenty minutes gone. Cavani caused a few problems for the visiting defence before the break, and Ter Stegen had to keep out Pastore and Rabiot after the restart, but midway through the second half Luis Suárez picked up a Montoya pass and cut past three defenders to poke a shot past Siriglu. Stegen kept out Cavani again and Messi shot wide following a good run, but with ten minutes to go Suárez collected a return pass from Mascherano and ran on past David Luiz to make it three. A couple of minutes later the locals got one back when Mathieu sliced a Van der Wiel shot past his own keeper, but even so Barça are odds-on favourites to make it through to the final four once again. (15.04.15)
Honours even in the first leg tie between Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid, and everything will be decided next Wednesday in the Bernabeu stadium. The two neighbours had met six times since Real won the “decimo” in Lisbon last summer, with Simeone’s team winning four times and the other two matches drawn, and once again the Merengues were unable to get the better of their city rivals. However the visitors were by far the better outfit this time around, and only a brilliant performance by Oblak prevented them from coming away with a victory. The local keeper made a string of top class saves, in particular before the break from Bale, Ronaldo, James and Modric, and only a couple of speculative efforts by Griezmann caused any problems for Casillas at the other end. Atleti did come away unscathed in the end though, and Madrid know they will have to score at least once next week if they are to go through to defend their title. (14.04.15)