Brest 0 PSG 3 (Vitinha pen 21; Dembélé 45, 66)
Paris St Germain seized control of their Champions League knockout phase playoff with a commanding 3-0 first-leg win at Brest on Tuesday, driven by a brace from forward Ousmane Dembele.
The match, which marked only the second time two French sides had faced each other in Champions League history, was dominated by a clinical PSG despite Brest also having their chances.
PSG broke the deadlock after 21 minutes, with Vitinha converting a penalty after Pierre Lees-Melou’s handball.
The visitors doubled their lead when Dembele cut inside from the right flank and beat the keeper at his near post with a low strike, scoring in his eighth consecutive match for PSG.
In the 66th minute, Dembele secured his brace, latching on to a loose ball in the box before sending a shot past Brest keeper Marco Bizot.
The result leaves Brest with a mountain to climb in the return leg at the Parc des Princes on February 19th.
Sporting Lisbon 0 Dortmund 3 (Guirassy 60, Grob 68, Adeyemi 82)
Borussia Dortmund forward Serhou Guirassy scored one and set up another in a 3-0 victory at Sporting to put last year’s finalists in the driving seat for a spot in the last 16.
Champions League top scorer Guirassy headed in his 10th goal of the competition on the hour mark before providing Pascal Gross with a perfect assist to double the lead in the 68th.
Karim Adeyemi added another in the 82nd minute, completing a five-touch textbook counter-attack, to mark a winning European debut on the Dortmund bench for Niko Kovac, who took over last week and saw his team lose at home to VfB Stuttgart in the league on Saturday.
The Portuguese side hit the woodwork in a solid first half but quickly ran out of gas after the break. The return leg in Dortmund is on February 19th.
Juventus 2 (McKennie 34, Mbangula 82) PSV 1 (Perisic 56)
Juventus substitute Samuel Mbangula snatched a late winner as the Italian giants beat PSV Eindhoven 2-1.
The Belgian’s 82nd minute close-range finish handed Juve a slender advantage to take to the Netherlands for next week’s return leg after PSV fought back from a halftime deficit.
A thunderous strike from Weston McKennie had put the hosts into a 34th minute lead but Ivan Perisic, who turned 36 this month, put PSV level 10 minutes into the second half.
Both sides, who have each previously won Europe’s top club prize, had chances in a flowing game and will feel they can progress to the last 16 in the return encounter next Wednesday.
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