Making his return to England, Luis Suarez scored twice to lead Barcelona to a 2-1 win over 10-man Manchester City in the Champions League, putting the away side in a commanding position ahead of the second leg in Spain in the middle of March.
However, the tie likely would have been over if Lionel Messi hadn’t missed an injury-time penalty — or the rebound with the net gaping. Indeed, it was one of the misses of the season from a man who has been crowned football’s player of the year four times.
Tuesday’s other tie hangs more in the balance, since Juventus takes a 2-1 lead into the second leg against 2013 finalist Borussia Dortmund.
Suarez hasn’t duplicated his Liverpool form so far since leaving Merseyside for Barcelona in the off-season — and perhaps that was inevitable since he isn’t the star man with the Catalans and missed a portion of the campaign after his ban for biting — but the Uruguayan engineered two fine finishes in the first half.
–
All three goals in Turin came in the first half.
Juventus — the runaway leader in Serie A — opened the scoring through former City striker Carlos Tevez’s 13th-minute tap in. Marco Reus equalized five minutes later for Dortmund — which had won three straight games in the Bundesliga to ease its relegation worries — but Alvaro Morata netted the winner in the 42nd for the ‘Old Lady’ of Italian football.
On Wednesday, Arsenal hosts Monaco and 2014 finalist Atletico Madrid visits Bayer Leverkusen.
