MADRID – Kylian Mbappé scored a hat trick, Erling Haaland stayed on the bench injured and Real Madrid dumped Manchester City out of the Champions League on Wednesday.
Mbappé’s stellar trio of goals in the fourth, 33rd and 61st minutes in a 3-1 win gave Madrid a 6-3 victory on aggregate over the 2023 champion in their two-leg knockout playoff.
“This has been the complete performance — attack, defense, with the ball and without the ball, we showed such high levels of quality,” Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said. “Almost the perfect night.”
One superstar striker was watched by another from the sidelines. Haaland was not fit to start for an ultimately overmatched Man City because of a knee injury sustained late in a Premier League game Saturday.
Paris Saint-Germain beat French rival Brest 7-0, to run up a 10-0 aggregate score, and will play either Liverpool or Barcelona in the round of 16.
PSV Eindhoven ousted Juventus in the only one of the eight playoffs this week that went to extra time. Defender Ryan Flamingo scored in the 98th minute for a 3-1 win on the night and 4-3 on aggregate. United States international Timothy Weah scored for Juventus.
“Honestly, we slipped up,” Weah said. “I felt like they were more aggressive on the night and we lacked a bit of aggression and hunger.”
In the early game Wednesday, Borussia Dortmund started with a 3-0 lead at home to Sporting Lisbon and was barely stretched in a 0-0 draw. Sporting’s Champions League campaign imploded after coach Ruben Amorim left for Manchester United in November.
Mbappé mastery
Mbappé’s first goal of the two-leg playoff in Manchester was a lucky miscue, a looping effort off his shin to level at 1-1 in what ended a 3-2 win.
His three goals in Madrid were classy and decisive. A first-time lob over City goalkeeper Ederson — who perhaps advanced too far, too soon — was followed by a low shot after leaving defender Joško Gvardiol on the turf.
The third was a powerful left-footer from the edge of the penalty area when he had lured six Man City players toward encircling him.
“I have always said I didn’t come here simply to complete a dream,” said Mbappé, a boyhood Madrid fan who never won a Champions League at Monaco and PSG. “I want to play well, I want to mark an era.”
Coach Pep Guardiola’s injury-hit side — with Ballon d’Or winner Rodri out since September and Kevin De Bruyne now rarely starting — has looked like a shadow of the heavyweight rival that met Madrid in each of the past three seasons, when each time the winner went on to lift the trophy.
Paris Saint-Germain hits 10
PSG has not lost anywhere since a Champions League defeat at Bayern Munich three months ago, and the playoff against Brest proved a total mismatch.
Brest had impressed in its first European season but went out with a whimper at Parc des Princes, after a 3-0 loss in the home leg.
Wingers Bradley Barcola and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia scored in the first half. Midfielder Vitinha, Desiré Doué, left back Nuno Mendes, striker Ramos and Senny Mayulu netted after the break. PSG also beat Brest 5-2 in a French league game this month.
Sporting slumps post-Amorim
With Ruben Amorim as coach, Sporting was unbeaten in four Champions League games and stood second in the 36-team standings. The team he left behind went winless in six Champions League games under two different coaches.
Dortmund also fired a coach midseason and newly hired Niko Kovač now has two wins on the European stage to offset two straight losses in the German league.
Still, Sporting’s prospects to be in the Champions League next season look better than Dortmund’s.
Portugal’s champion advances direct to the next league phase and Sporting currently is top, two points clear of Benfica. Dortmund is 11th in the Bundesliga and could need to win this Champions League title to earn a place in the next edition.
Round of 16 draw
Real Madrid, PSG, Dortmund and PSV join Bayern Munich, Benfica, Club Brugge and Feyenoord, which all advanced Tuesday, as playoff round winners who will be unseeded teams in Friday’s draw. They will host the first-leg games on March 4-5.
The top eight in the 36-team standings three weeks ago — Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille, Aston Villa — skipped the playoffs round and are seeded in the round of 16 draw. They host second legs on March 11-12.
The round of 16 is in a new, tennis-like seeded bracket for the knockout stage in the expanded competition format.
Madrid, as the 11th-place team in the standings and No. 11 seed already knew its next opponent would be Atletico or Leverkusen, who respectively placed fifth and sixth.
Top-seeded Liverpool will play No. 15 PSG or No. 16 Benfica.
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