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Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola celebrates after Kevin De Bruyne scores in a 1-0 win over Atletico Madrid on April 5, 2022.CRAIG BROUGH/Reuters

Kevin De Bruyne scored the only goal to give Manchester City a 1-0 win over Atletico Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday.

After a tight 70 minutes, City finally found its way through Atletico’s tough rearguard helped by Phil Foden’s vision. Just 79 seconds after coming off the bench, Foden slid in a fine throughball and De Bruyne raced through to fire in a low shot from a tight angle.

“We knew it was going to be pretty tough to create some opportunities,” De Bruyne said. “The first half was tight, but we didn’t give anything away and in the second half had a couple of chances. It was good that we took one.”

In the night’s other quarter-final first leg, six-time European champion Liverpool won 3-1 at Benfica.

Both City and Atletico have reached the Champions League final but have never lifted the trophy.

Atletico played its usual cagey game as coach Diego Simeone had promised.

The first half was played at a slow tempo with City controlling most of the ball but, despite having all of its outfield players in the final third at times, being unable to create openings.

De Bruyne and Joao Cancelo both had efforts deflected wide and Aymeric Laporte missed the target with a header.

Ilkay Gundogan shot well over and Rodri had a long-range effort blocked before De Bruyne had a penalty appeal turned down and John Stones also missed.

“It is very hard,” De Bruyne said. “They played almost five at the back and five in midfield, it is very hard to find the spaces.”

It was not until the second half that the hosts tried to inject more pace into their play. That did open the game up slightly and Atletico almost capitalized with a couple of breaks from deep. Antoine Griezmann wasted one opening with a poor pass and Marcos Llorente chipped tamely at goalkeeper Ederson from another.

In Lisbon, Luis Diaz set up one goal and scored himself in the 87th minute on his emphatic return to Portugal to lead Liverpool to a 3-1 win over Benfica in their first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals.

The Colombia international played for Benfica’s big rival, Porto, until he was signed by Liverpool in January so was probably the last player the home fans wanted to see celebrate what could prove to be a crucial third goal for the English club.

Running onto Naby Keita’s deflected through-ball, Diaz rounded the goalkeeper and slotted the ball into the unguarded net before wheeling away in joy in front of the whistling Benfica supporters at the Estadio da Luz.

Diaz played a big part in Liverpool’s second goal, nodding down a pinpoint long pass by Trent Alexander-Arnold to allow Sadio Mane to tap home from close range in the 34th. That built on Liverpool’s opener scored by Ibrahima Konate – the centre back’s first for the club – at a corner in the 17th minute.

Benfica could easily have been further behind by halftime, but took the game more to the English team in the second half and Darwin Nunez capitalized on a mistake by Konate to pull a goal back in the 49th.

There were a few more rocky moments for Liverpool – in one of them, goalkeeper Alisson Becker was almost dispossessed on the edge of his area by Rafa Silva – before Diaz’s strike ensured Jurgen Klopp’s team would clinch a fifth straight win in all competitions.

The Reds passed the latest test in their bid for an unprecedented quadruple of trophies, with the semi-finals now in sight. They have already won the English League Cup, are in the semi-finals of the FA Cup, and are one point behind leader Manchester City in the Premier League.

Klopp even took the option of bringing off star attackers Mane and Mohamed Salah in the 61st minute, perhaps with the league showdown against City on Sunday in mind.

Barcelona expects another sold-out stadium for women’s game

BARCELONA There could be another world-record crowd on hand to watch Barcelona’s semi-final in the women’s Champions League as the club said Tuesday that all tickets for the match against Wolfsburg at the Camp Nou Stadium were picked up in just over 24 hours. A crowd of 91,553 watched Barcelona defeat Real Madrid in the quarter-finals last month at the Camp Nou, the biggest attendance ever for a women’s soccer match. The previous record for any women’s game had been 90,185 for the 1999 World Cup final between the United States and China at the Rose Bowl in California. Barcelona said the 50,000 free tickets made available to club members were all picked up Monday, and those sold to the general public were gone by Tuesday afternoon. The club did not specify the exact number of tickets sold so far. More than 70,000 tickets had been allocated beforehand to see Barcelona’s women play the “clasico” against Madrid. The game against Wolfsburg will be the first leg of the semi-finals. The second leg will be the following week in Germany. Lyon and Paris Saint-Germain will play in the other semi-final. The women’s Champions League final will be in Turin on May 21.

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