Direct Chronicle
Liverpool will be Villarreal's rival in the semifinals of the Champions League after beating Benfica in a showless task, based on the two-goal harvest achieved in the first leg.
The calendar conditioned the English team, which is looking for its seventh wound in the highest European competition, but also attends to the domestic: on Saturday it will meet Manchester City in a cup semifinal at Wembley that comes after its frenetic duel in the Premier of the past Weekend.
Against Benfica, two up and at Anfield, Jürgen Klopp designed an alternative line-up and kept Van Dijk, Alexander-Arnold, Robertson, Fabinho, Thiago, Salah and Mané in reserve.
He had more than enough to control the situation.
LIVLiverpool
3
Alisson, Ibrahima Konate, Matip, Konstantinos Tsimikas, Joe Gomez, Naby Keita, Milner (Thiago, min. 57), Henderson (Fabinho, min. 57), Luis Díaz (Mane, min. 65), Roberto Firmino (Divock Origi, min. 90) and Diogo Jota (Salah, min. 56)
BEN Benfica
3
Vlachodimos, Gilberto Junior (Gil Dias, min. 90), Otamendi, Vertonghen, Grimaldo, Diogo Gonçalves (Yaremchuk, min. 45), Taarabt (João Mário, min. 65), Julian Weigl, Everton (André Almeida, min. 90 ), Goncalo Ramos (Paulo Bernardo, min. 77) and Darwin Núñez
Goals
1-0 min.
20: Ibrahima Konate.
1-1 min.
31: Goncalo Ramos.
2-1 min.
54: Roberto Firmino.
3-1 min.
64: Roberto Firmino.
3-2 min.
72: Yaremchuk.
3-3 min.
81: Darwin Nunez.
Referee
Serdar Gözübuyük
Seeing the blackboard, Benfica perked up.
In addition, the Lisbon team has caste and pride, inferior to its rival, but always ready to fight and with dynamite up front because Darwin Núñez has grown and has become a posh, powerful striker, with the ability to uncheck and define.
Liverpool drew fruit from its superiority in the stopped ball.
He dominated the aerial game in both areas and Konaté, like in Lisbon, did not spare to put the
Reds
back in the lead from the start .
The tie came before the break to reward the Portuguese determination.
Gonçalo Ramos scored after an error by Milner.
Shortly before, Núñez had done so, frustrated by a tight offside.
Liverpool were not comfortable in the first half, but they did not go through bad times either.
He worked on the pressure, but did not find the usual vertigo.
He seemed like he wasn't interested in engaging high gear either.
He played with his eyes on the stopwatch and was relieved half an hour from the end with a goal from Firmino after a chain of disasters caused by Vlachodimos and Vertonghen.
Klopp then gave Salah, Fabinho, Thiago and Mané room to manage efforts.
He took the ball, began to move the rival, raised lines in the pressure and seemed to sentence everything with another goal from Firmino.
Too much confidence against an iron Benfica, who exploited the spaces behind the English defense and scored two goals through Yaremchuk and Núñez in what seemed like a procedural time.
With the game tied and ten minutes to play, Alisson pushed himself to the limit to avoid a new goal from the Uruguayan striker that would have dismantled the entire local theater.
The former Almería player still scored again on the hour, voracious in the area.
And from there a double reading can be extracted: Benfica was always worthy in its deployment and Liverpool outlined a vein that Villarreal can exploit.
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