NOS Football••Amended
Bayern Munich’s football players have won the first game in the quarter-finals of the Champions League against Arsenal. In Munich, the German team won 1-0 against the team of Victoria Pelova and the injured Vivianne Miedema.
In the Allianz Arena, some 20,000 spectators saw Lea Schüller make the only goal of the evening in the 39th minute. After a smooth attack, Maximiliane Rall delivered the ball to the head of the German top scorer with a nice cross.
Schüller towered over the Arsenal defense and left goalkeeper Manuel Zinsberger without a chance. It was the fourteenth goal of the season for the German international.
Arsenal pressed for the equalizer after the break and brought Victoria Pelova within the lines in the sixtieth minute. Bayern held on, despite a ball on the post from Caitlin Foord.
Barcelona nipt langs Rome
Later in the evening, Barcelona did the same by winning 1-0 against AS Roma. Goalkeeper and captain Sandra Paños can expect a hefty extra premium because she kept Barcelona going in the final phase by preventing a certain goal several times.
In front of almost twice as many spectators as in Munich, in Rome there were 39,454 people in the stands, Salma Paralluelo scored the only goal after just over half an hour of play. The Spanish striker received the ball on the edge of the penalty area, tricked her opponent thanks to a nice assumption and then hit the target.
Despite a truckload of opportunities for the visitors, Barça was unable to expand the score further. And thanks to Paños, who just tapped a hard shot from Manuela Giugliano in the final phase and kept a bet from Valentina Giacinti out of her short corner, it remained 0-1.
The other quarter-finals in the Champions League are scheduled for tomorrow. Then VfL Wolfsburg (Lynn Wilms, Dominique Janssen, Jill Roord) will meet Paris Saint-Germain (Jackie Groenen, Lieke Martens) in-house and Chelsea and Olympique Lyonnais (Damaris Egurrola, Daniëlle van de Donk) will compete against each other.
The returns will be played on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
