In the closing of the first legs of the round of 16 of the Champions League, Inter Milan beat Porto 1-0 on Wednesday, while Manchester City recorded a 1-1 draw on their trip to RB’s ground Leipzig.
After these two games, the Champions League is already preparing for the decisive second leg matches of the qualifiers, which will be played between March 7 and 15, spread over two weeks as usual.
The teams that played this Wednesday will play those return matches on Tuesday, March 14.
On that date, Inter will arrive in a good position after their long-suffering victory against Porto (1-0), which is forced to seek a comeback in front of its fans.
The Belgian attacker Romelu Lukaku (minute 86) managed to reflect Inter’s overall superiority in the match on the scoreboard, although Porto also had chances that put the Nerazzurri in trouble.
Lukaku was able to beat Diogo Costa in that final stretch. He first finished off a cross into the area with a header, sending it to the post, and was able to reach the rebound. He did not forgive then, to the joy of the ‘tifosi’ of Giuseppe Meazza.
The match, mostly dominated by the locals, was plagued with chances, with the goalkeepers of both teams intervening numerous times to keep their clean sheets until the final stretch.
Porto was hurt in the final stretch by remaining numerically inferior to Otávio by two yellow cards (41 and 78).
The English don’t win
For their part, Manchester City could not maintain their advantage and ended up drawing 1-1 at Leipzig, leaving everything open for the return to England.
The Algerian Riyad Mahrez opened the scoring for Josep Guardiola’s team in the 27th minute and in the 70th minute the Croatian Josko Gvardiol equalized for the locals.
Mahrez has seven goals in 2023: four in the Premier League, two in the FA Cup and now one in the Champions League. He has also given three assists in this start of the year.
In this Wednesday’s game, Jack Grealish intercepted a ball from Xavier Schlager and gave up looking for a teammate. In the midst of the hubbub, the ball went to Mahrez, who stepped into the area and sent an accurate shot into the German net.
Leipzig’s equalizer came from a corner kick, which Gvardiol headed into the back of the goal defended by the Brazilian Ederson.
None of the four English teams classified to the round of 16 of the Champions League has been able to win in the first leg of their qualifying rounds.
City can at least boast of being the only one who did not lose, since the other three were defeated in the first round of their qualifiers, both Chelsea (1-0 against Borussia Dortmund) and Tottenham (1-0 against AC Milan) and Liverpool (5-2 at home against Real Madrid).
Josep Guardiola and his pupils are now relying on the field factor to make good this draw in Germany and move on in a competition that the club never conquered and that obsesses its Emirati owners.
