Vinicius brace pushes Real close to semi finals

Vinicius produced his finest performance in a Real Madrid shirt with a pair of goals to lead Los Blancos to a 3-1 victory against Liverpool in the first leg of the 2020/21 Champions League quarter-finals on Tuesday night at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano.

The Brazilian's two goals sandwiched a strike from Marco Asensio in what was a largely commanding performance from the home side. Nevertheless, a strong spell early in the second half yielded a precious away goal for Liverpool from Mohamed Salah and gives the Premier League side plenty of hope going into next week's return leg at Anfield.

With Sergio Ramos out injured and Raphael Varane unavailable due to COVID, coach Zinedine Zidane was forced into some defensive adjustments and settled on a four-man back-line instead of three centre-backs, with Lucas Vazquez and Ferland Mendy as full-backs and Eder Militao and Nacho as centre-backs. Meanwhile, in attack, Vinicius was selected to join the in-form Asensio and centre-forward Karim Benzema.

As for Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp, Thiago Alcantara was a surprising omission in midfield, as Naby Keita got the nod from the German.

The tempo and shape of the start favoured Madrid and after a few early jabs, they landed a haymaker with Toni Kroos hoofing up a pass upfield that Vinicius did extremely well to control with his chest and split two Liverpool defenders before finishing past Alisson for a 1-0 lead.

Kroos would be the mastermind of the second Madrid goal, with another long ball played by the German midfielder that Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold errantly headed into the path of Asensio, who took a touch to chip over Alisson before polishing off the play from a yard out to make it 2-0.

The Liverpool defence were completely out of sorts and Ozan Kabak could not have gift-wrapped a better chance for Asensio with an extremely poor back-pass, only for Alisson to bail out his full-back with a deflection that sent Asensio's shot wide.

Klopp couldn't stand it any longer and three minutes before half-time, he made his first change, bringing on Thiago for Keita to try to get some control in midfield. It provided a lift for the English visitors and minutes after the re-start, Salah cut the Madrid lead down to 2-1 by taking a pass from Diogo Jota and beating goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois to snag a precious away goal.

But back game Madrid and some slick passing from Luka Modric and an even sharper right-footed finish from Vinicius in front of a Liverpool defender restored Real's two-goal advantage at 3-1.

Zidane added some muscle in midfield with the two-goal advantage, with Fede Valverde on for Asensio as the first substitution of the night, followed later by Rodrygo for Vinicius.

From there, Madrid saw out the final minutes camped out in their own half to ensure the two-goal advantage stayed intact going into next Wednesday's second leg in Liverpool.

Source: Marca English