Barcelona cruised to a 5-4 victory over Benfica in Tuesday’s round of the Champions League.
Matti Lehtisaari,
STT Sports
11:16•Updated 11:17
Piloting the Spanish soccer giant FC Barcelona Hansi Flick couldn’t help but be amazed by his crew’s incredible finish in Tuesday’s Champions League round. Barcelona cruised to a sweet 5-4 away win over Portugal’s Benfica.
Benfica went into the break with a 3-1 lead and raced out to a 4-2 lead in the second half before Barcelona began their rampant rise. Robert Lewandowski succeeded from the penalty kick in the 78th minute, Eric Garcia scored in the 86th minute and Raphinha scored the winning goal in the sixth minute of overtime.
– It was a crazy match. But that’s what football is and that’s why we love it. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a comeback like this. Beyond belief. We didn’t play well in the first half, but we got back into the game, Flick commented on the colorful events to Movistar.
Flick’s decision to trust the goalkeeper to Wojciech Szczesny had to backfire because Benfica scored two goals in the first half of the struggle due to errors by the Polish keeper. Vangelis Pavlidis made a hat trick in the opening period.
– Which player does not make mistakes. Szczesny made mistakes, but so did all our other players in the first half. We win together, we lose together. In the second half, Szczesny saved Benfica’s clear goal chance, Flick said.
Liverpool at the top, Barcelona second
Barcelona is second in the Champions League after Liverpool, as both have one match left to play in the league stage. On Tuesday, the British club Liverpool celebrated a 2–1 home victory over the French Lille and has won all seven of their matches in the league stage. Barcelona has taken six wins and suffered one loss.
Spanish Atletico Madrid beat German Leverkusen 2–1. With their win, Atletico rose to third place, Leverkusen is now sixth in the standings. Screamer guard Lukas Hradecky instead, the team’s second keeper, a Czech, played exceptionally well in Leverkusen’s goal Matej Kovar.
36 teams play in the league stage of the Champions League, of which 24 advance to the playoffs. The top eight will go directly to the second round of the playoffs, while the remaining 16 teams will start the playoffs from the first round.
The league phase ends on January 29. The opening round of the playoffs gets underway on February 11 and 12.