Holland's Benefits
Since the end of the first match of the 1/8 finals of the Champions League with Leipzig, a lot of events have happened in the camp of Manchester City.
Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones and Aymeric Laporte solved their health problems, Phil Foden finally returned to his usual condition and scored three goals in four meetings, and Kyle Walker managed to get into an extremely unpleasant story.
And all this together could make Pep Guardiola seriously shake up the squad and hit the experts with the next tactical delights.
In the return confrontation, the “citizens” appeared in a rather unusual combination, but they parted in an even more unexpected way.
The appearance of four central defenders at the start was in itself surprising, but in reality only Ruben Dias, Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji remained in the defensive line, while the Stones moved up to the support zone and located there along with Rodri.
At the same time, Foden did not come out again from the first minutes.
On the left, according to tradition, Jack Grealish turned out to be, and Bernardo Silva took the place on the opposite flank.
While Riyad Mahrez, who hit the gates of the Germans three weeks ago, remained in reserve.
Immediately struck by how often the partners began to involve Erling Haaland.
If last time he received the ball a few times, this time he regularly became the addressee of passes, and sometimes he dropped into the support zone to participate in the draw.
And it was the Norwegian who could open the account already in the 11th minute.
He responded to a throw into the penalty area, walked away from the defender at a long pace, but failed to beat Janis Blasviha.
However, Holland's finest hour has come.
And it happened in the middle of the first half, when he scored a double in two minutes and reached the mark of 30 goals in the Champions League the fastest in history.
First, the striker converted a penalty, and then played on the rebound after De Bruyne hit the crossbar.
Moreover, the 11-meter was appointed for the handball performed by one of the main characters of the previous meeting - Benjamin Henrichs.
Then it was his appearance that helped Leipzig seize the initiative and subsequently snatch a draw.
Leipzig did not succeed at all.
Perhaps the absence of Christopher Nkunku and Xaver Schlager, who dropped out due to injuries, affected, but City also had an influence.
The British were great in pressing and did not let the opponent breathe, allowing him to only hit his own goal twice in the first 45 minutes.
Moreover, in the second case, they literally gave the opponent a moment.
Perepasovka in his own penalty area ended with a "shotgun", which Timo Werner almost took advantage of.
"Manchester" reacted correctly: they added even more activity and already in the stoppage time for the first half, they removed all questions about the winner.
Blasvih miraculously repelled Dias's kick after a corner kick, but Haaland turned out to be the most efficient again.
But this irrepressible Norwegian was not enough.
By the 57th minute, Erling had already scored five goals, both of which were the result of finishing moves.
But did it matter?
Rather, it is important that in addition to him, in the history of the Champions League, only Lionel Messi and Luis Adriano made out the penta-trick (in the European Champions Cup, this bar was submitted to ten more athletes).
Thus, the Norwegian helped to bring City's superiority to six goals - in the debut of the half, a masterpiece was created by Ilkay Gundogan, who took Blasvich by surprise with a billiard blow.
On this Guardiola decided to stop.
Within a few minutes Holland, Gundogan and Grealish left the field.
Moreover, the Norwegian was clearly unhappy with his replacement, but still smiled, passing the "baton" to Julian Alvarez.
However, neither the 2022 world champion nor Mahrez and Foden were able to organize the Bulls' seventh goal.
But this was done by De Bruyne, who put an end to the incredible beauty of the blow.
Manchester City shipped seven unanswered goals to Leipzig and reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
Manchester City players Erling Haaland and John Stones
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Bad luck for Porto
Unlike Manchester City, a draw in the confrontation with Porto was enough for Inter to pass to the next round.
And the wards of Simone Inzaghi entered the Dragau field with one goal - to prevent the opponent from creating anything at their gates and to keep a minimal advantage.
The snag was that lately the Nerazzurri's defense had been anything but flawless.
In five matches, they conceded four goals and only twice played to zero.
And in this meeting, Inter's defense often burst at the seams.
Already in the third minute, Andres Uribe beat without resistance because of the free kick, slightly missing the top nine.
Several excellent chances had Stefan Eustakiou, at the end of the half, he almost closed the backache of the Brazilian Pepe (not to be confused with the Portuguese).
Evanilson struck almost from the goalkeeper's area, subsequently blocked by Federico Dimarco.
Porto was also not sinless and sometimes got too carried away with the attack, skipping counterattacks, but still looked preferable.
And although sometimes the Italians had to literally pull the shorts off their opponents in order to prevent them from breaking through to their own penalty area, they managed to keep the desired score.
But the less time left, the more active the Portuguese went forward.
However, Andre Onan could not be forced to capitulate.
The Cameroonian goalkeeper rarely entered the game, but when he did, he looked great.
First, he parried the "shot" of Wenderson Galenko from 13 meters, and then reacted to the insidious blow of Marko Gruich.
The Serb handled the ball with one touch, and the second unexpectedly struck the bottom.
But the goalkeeper was alert.
Toward the end, Inzaghi did his best to reinforce the defensive redoubts.
Two of the most experienced central defenders, Stefan de Vrij and Milan Skrinjar, entered the field in turn.
But it was in "their shift" that the hosts almost got their way.
Already in stoppage time, several most dangerous moments arose at the gates of Inter.
Tony Martinez performed an acrobatic sketch, but missed, and Denzel Dumfries, who arrived in time, prevented Ivan Marcano from excelling.
But the hottest thing was in the fifth added minute.
After Mehdi Taremi's header, Onana himself showed miracles of reaction, from whose hands the ball hit the post.
And after a few seconds, the filing in the penalty area was tried to close all the same Gruich, but miraculously landed on the crossbar.
As it turned out, the owners did not have more opportunities to restore parity.
And what happened in the remaining minutes was like agony.
In one minute, the chief referee Shimon Marcinyak immediately issued three yellow cards to the representatives of Porto.
Conceição received one of them for talking, and Pepe got two.
Moreover, if the first he was punished for a hard foul on Danilo D'Ambrosio, then questions remain about the second.
Apparently, the Brazilian expressed his dissatisfaction too clearly, for which he was sent to the subtribute.
But this did not have a serious effect.
Seconds later, the Pole blew the final whistle, announcing Inter's advance to the quarter-finals for the first time since 2011.
Inter goalkeeper Andre Onana
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