Manchester City, of England, tied 1-1 with its German host Leipzig on Wednesday in the first leg of the final price of the match UEFA Champions League Footballwhile the Italian Inter achieved a fatal victory over Porto, Portugal, 1-0, with the goal of its Belgian striker, Romelu Lukaku.
In the first match, City opened the scoring with its Algerian wing, Riyad Mahrez (27), and just for Leipzig, Croatian defender Josko Gvardiol, headed it (70).
Manchester City, desperate for their first major European title, entered the match without their influential Belgian playmaker Kevin De Bruyne and Spanish defender Aymeric Laporte due to illness.
On the other hand, the French international striker and top scorer for Leipzig, Christopher Nkunku, started on the benches of the reserve players, after recovering recently from a knee injury that kept him from the ranks of his country in the recent World Cup in Qatar, noting that he participated as a reserve for the first time during his team’s match in the German League against Wolfsburg on Saturday. past and contributed an assist.
The Spanish winger, Dani Olmo, is also absent, as he led the offensive line in their absence, Timo Werner and the Portuguese Andre Silva.
“two halves”
As usual, City had a large percentage of the ball without posing a real danger to the Leipzig goal, and waited until the 13th minute for Portuguese defender Robin Dias to hit the first ball between the three sticks from a header following a corner kick raised by Mahrez, but it came weak in the hands of the goalkeeper (13) .
City took advantage of a wrong pass on the outskirts of the area, and it reached Mahrez, who fired a powerful ball with his left into the net, opening the scoring (27). It is the twelfth goal in various competitions this season for Mahrez, who celebrated his thirty-second birthday on Tuesday.
In the second half, Leipzig gave up his caution, and he had two opportunities for substitute Benjamin Henrichs, one header and the other from a creeping shot, without succeeding in scoring (51 and 53).
Ederson flew a powerful ball that was hit by Hungarian Dominic Chubuchlay and turned it into a corner, from which the equalizing goal came from Gvardiol’s header (70).
City responded with a shot by German midfielder Ilkay Gundongan, but the Leipzig goalkeeper brilliantly pushed his ball away (73).
Leipzig coach Marco Rose said, “They were two very, very different halves. We were not present in the first, we only ran after the ball and were very bad when it was in our possession. The second was completely different, we were better with the ball, we recovered it and played as we planned.”
As for Henrichs, he said after the match, “We were lucky to fall behind by a single goal in the first half, but in the second half we could have come out with a better result.” “We were braver in the second half,” he added.
Lukaku the savior
And at the San Siro stadium, substitute Lukaku gave Inter a fatal victory over Porto, by scoring the only goal in the 86th minute.
Lukaku gave Inter a moral boost to reach the quarter-finals in the continental competition for the first time since 2011, before their meeting in Lisbon three weeks later.
Inter benefited from Porto completing the match with ten players since the 78th minute, following Ottavio’s expulsion, to score the only goal.
This confrontation was between coaches Simone Inzaghi and Sergio Conceicao, former colleagues in Italian Lazio, with whom they won the league and cup together in 2000, the cup in 2004 in addition to the European Super Cup 1999.
This was the fifth confrontation between the two teams, and ironically, the previous four were all in 2005: Inter qualified at the expense of Porto to the quarter-finals of 2004-2005 (a victory and a draw in the final price) and they met again in the group stage of the following season (a victory for each team).
Bosnian Edin Dzeko started at Lukaku’s expense in the offensive line alongside Argentine Lautaro Martinez, while Iranian Mahdi Tarmi, who scored five goals in the group stage, led Porto’s attack line.
The first shot on goal came from the Turkish Hakan Calhanoglu, who hit from a far place near the touch line on the left side a powerful ball that goalkeeper Diogo Costa sent to a corner (18).
Porto, who reached the quarter-finals twice in the past four seasons, showed some glimpses of possession of the ball, and had a perfect opportunity from a beautiful game after Ottavio passed a creeping through ball to Tarmi inside the area, who quickly passed it back with his heel to the Serbian Marco Grujic, who shot it strong towards the goal, Cameroonian goalkeeper Andre Onana blocked it, setting it up for Brazilian Anderson Gallino, who followed it up with a header outside the goal (37).
Costa shone at the end of the first half, preventing Inter from entering the break, taking the lead when he made a wonderful one-hand save for Alessandro Bastoni’s header, following a free kick by Dimarco (45 + 3).
In the second half, Onana made two saves in a row, depriving Porto of an established lead. Ola Shkriniar intercepted a shot from Zaidu Sanusi, which returned to the Nigerian, who shot it powerfully, and the Cameroonian blocked it to prepare for Tarmi, who followed it up again. After that, Inzaghi Lukaku and German Robin Goossens replaced Dzeko and Dimarco, respectively (58). Martinez also missed an opportunity when a ball hit him towards the second post from Lukaku, which he did not reach in time (73).
Porto played the last quarter of an hour with ten players, after Ottavio was sent off with a second yellow for stepping on Calhanoglu’s foot.
Lukaku scored the only goal when he first followed a header after a cross from Barella, which bounced off the post to return to him and follow it into the net.
Porto will arm itself in the rematch by eliminating six Italian clubs in the last two decades of European competitions.
France 24/AFP
