Champions League, Bayern and Arsenal win on the road: Real Madrid and Sporting knockout

In the first two Champions League quarterfinal matches, both played on Tuesday night, Bayern Munich expelled Real Madrid’s pitch winning 2-1 while Arsenal mocked Sporting in the final, closing on 1-0 in their favor. The schedule calls for the return matches next Wednesday, at Munich’s Allianz Arena and London’s Emirates Stadium, respectively, again at 9 p.m.

At the “Santiago Bernabeu,” Bayern, fresh from their goal-scoring spree against Atalanta (6-1 in the first leg in Bergamo, 4-1 in the return in Germany) also played with swagger in front of the Madrid crowd, taking the lead at 41′ of the first half through Luis Diaz, who was good at exploiting Gnabry’s assist in the best possible way with a first-time touch. At the beginning of the second half, more precisely after just 20 seconds, came the doubling: great play by Olise who gives the ball to Kane, the English bomber guesses the right angle and makes it 2-0.

Real, with its back to the wall, has a couple of chances to shorten, but at 61′ Vinicius kicks on the outside of the net and at 66′ Mbappé finds the brilliant opposition of Neuer. It was precisely the Frenchman, however, who scored in the 74th minute the goal that halved the distance: Neuer came close to another miracle, but could not prevent the ball from going in. Intense final, in the recovery Luis Diaz fails to score the trio from a good position: it ends 2-1.

At the “José Alvalade” in Lisbon, on the other hand, Arsenal plays a game of substance against a Sporting however competitive from start to finish: in the first half there is a crossbar on each side, with Araujo catching it at 9′ and Odegaard hitting it at 16′, while in the second half there is first Zubimendi’s goal at 63′, cancelled for offside signaled by VAR, then Havertz’s regular goal at 91′, on an assist by Martinelli, which is worth the final 1-0.

Wednesday night is the first leg of the other two quarterfinals: in Paris, PSG faces Liverpool while in Barcelona it is a Spanish derby between the Blaugrana and Atletico Madrid.