Real Madrid, on Tuesday, secured a dramatic 3-2 victory over Manchester City in the Champions League Knockout Round Play-offs at the Etihad stadium, with Jude Bellingham netting a stoppage-time winner to seal the win.
In another fixture, Samuel Mbangula boosted Juventus’ chances of reaching the last 16 by netting the late winner in Tuesday’s 2-1 success over PSV Eindhoven in Turin.
Meanwhile, in England, City took the lead in the 19th minute through Erling Haaland, who converted an assist from Joško Gvardiol to put City ahead. Pep Guardiola’s men maintained their advantage going into halftime, but Real Madrid responded strongly after the break.
In the 60th minute, Kylian Mbappé equalised for Los Blancos, finishing off an assist from Dani Ceballos to make it 1-1.
City regained the lead in the 80th minute when Haaland converted from the penalty spot, restoring their advantage at 2-1.
However, the Spanish giants staged a late comeback, with Brahim Díaz levelling the score in the 86th minute after being set up by Vinícius Junior.
Just when it seemed the match was heading towards extra time, Bellingham found the net in the second minute of stoppage time, again assisted by Vinícius, to complete Madrid’s turnaround and secure a 3-2 victory.
Juventus edge PSV 2-1 in Champions League Play-off
Samuel Mbangula netted the late winner in Juventus' 2-1 success over PSV Eindhoven in Turin.
Winger Mbangula forced home the decisive goal eight minutes from the end at the Allianz Stadium to give Juve a lead to take to next week’s second leg of their play-off tie with PSV.
The 21-year-old saved Juve from being stung by Ivan Perisic, who was a fan favourite at the Turin giants’ fiercest rivals Inter Milan and cancelled out Weston McKennie’s cracking first-half opener with a thunderous strike of his own 10 minutes after half-time.
Juve travel to the Philips Stadion a week on Wednesday with a good chance of setting up a last-16 showdown with Inter, who they face in Turin on Sunday night.
Either Inter or Arsenal await whichever of these two teams makes it through the play-offs.
Juve were the better team in the early stages and McKennie’s thumping 34th-minute strike came in a first half in which the hosts were the better team but struggled to make the most of their supremacy.
Timothy Weah and Nicolas Gonzalez both forced good stops from PSV goalkeeper Walter Benitez, who also kept out Randal Kolo Muani with an instinctive save seconds before McKennie crashed in the opener.
PSV were dangerous however and both Ismael Saibari and Ryan Flamingo had good chances to snatch the lead in the 16th and 19th minutes, the former sloppily shooting wide a close-range effort after Juve goalkeeper Michele Di Gregorio flapped at a Perisic cross.
And it was Perisic who levelled the scores in the 56th minute with a brilliantly strike, the 36-year-old cutting inside new Juve arrival Lloyd Kelly before lashing a low strike in at Di Gregorio’s near post.
That strike came out of nowhere as Juve had been pressing for a second and conceding to a despised former Inter man sucked the life out of the crowd and gave PSV a new lease of life.
But just as PSV looked to be escaping Turin with a draw Mbangula struck with his first ever goal in Europe’s elite club competition, confidently stroking home on the rebound to give Juve a lead to defend in the Netherlands.
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