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The Champions League second leg matches were played this week and the games were full of surprises. Real Madrid faced Ajax at the Bernabeu on Tuesday night coming into the game with a 2-1 win in the first leg. Ajax didn’t need long to score the first goal with Tadic laying the ball off for Ziyech. Ajax got their second goal 11 minutes later with another Tadic assist this time to Neres who put the Amsterdam club ahead in the aggregate score. Tadic got his goal as well in the second half where he curled a beauty into the top left-hand corner to put the tie seemingly out of reach for Madrid. Real did get a goal back through Asensio to give them a slight glimmer of hope, but that was crushed two minutes later when Lasse Schone scored a brilliant freekick. Real Madrid were very poor on the night and really missed the presence of Ramos. That shouldn’t take away from the fact that Ajax were near perfect and played a tremendous match to reach the quarterfinals.
The second game to be played on Tuesday was between Dortmund and Tottenham. This game was more of a formality as Spurs won the first game 3-0 and Dortmund are not in the best of form at the moment. They lost in the weekend to Augsburg and have only won one game in five. Harry Kane got the only goal right after half time to seal the match and make sure Spurs made it through to the quarterfinals.
Manchester United needed to travel to Paris to face PSG in the second leg after losing the first leg 0-2. This was a difficult task for United and PSG were heavy favorites to progress. However, United scored after only three minutes when Lukaku pounced on a loose ball from Kehrer. Their lead didn’t last long as PSG got a goal back from Bernat 10 minutes later. PSG seemed to be getting into their stride until Buffon couldn’t hold onto a shot from Rashford and the rebound fell right into Lukaku’s path who scored his second goal of the night. The second half there were chances for both teams, but it looked more likely that PSG would get another goal. Then on the 90th minute the ball struck Kimpembe on the arm and after consulting VAR the referee gave the penalty. Rahsford stepped up and showed nerves of steel to score and win the game 1-3 sending his team to the quarterfinals. This is the second time in three years that PSG loses the second leg in the round of 16 after winning the first leg comfortably.
The second game on Wednesday was between Roma and Porto which finished 2-1 for Roma in the first leg. Porto got the first goal on the 26th minute, but De Rossi pulled one back for Roma. Porto got the second goal early in the second half through Marega to level the tie. Neither team could get another goal and the game went to extra time. Just when it seemed that the game was destined for penalties there was more VAR drama. A Porto player went down in the Roma box and the referee initially gave nothing but after consulting with his team he gave a late penalty which Telles scored to send his side to the quarterfinals.
