The Ballon d’Or winner was the distinction.
Ousmane Dembele scored twice as Champions League holders Paris Saint-Germain progressed to the semi-finals and condemned Liverpool to a trophy-less season with a 2-0 win at Anfield.
PSG held a 2-0 benefit from a quarter-final first leg they dominated and, although they’d to absorb stress for a lot of the second half within the return leg, Luis Enrique’s males bought the job completed to arrange a last-four clash with either Real Madrid or Bayern Munich.
Liverpool misplaced Hugo Ekitike to what a severe damage within the first half and, after his France colleague Need Doue was compelled off for PSG within the second, there was large frustration for the hosts as they noticed the award of a penalty overturned after a VAR overview.
And Arne Slot’s males in the end paid the value for failing to make their spell of second-half stress inform, Dembele creating area for himself on the sting of the realm and beating Giorgi Mamardashvil with a left-footed strike into the bottom-left nook.
That strike left Liverpool with an excessive amount of to do, and Dembele utilized the gloss to the mixture scoreline with a stoppage-time second that made the hole between the 2 groups as emphatic because it ought to have been after the primary leg in Paris.
Liverpool endure Ekitike blow
Mamardashvili needed to present his improvisational abilities to forestall Dembele from breaking the impasse a lot sooner than the 72nd minute, the Georgian denying the Ballon d’Or winner whereas working again to his personal purpose after slicing out a throughball to Warren Zaire-Emery. Dembele then hooked over the crossbar from shut vary following nice work from Joao Neves.
Ekitike was carried off on a stretcher in appreciable misery on the half-hour mark after taking place off the ball, resulting in the introduction of Mohamed Salah, who was surprisingly ignored of the facet with Alexander Isak beginning his first recreation since his December damage.
Instantly after Ekitike’s departure, Liverpool went agonisingly near taking the lead on the night time as Matvey Safonov thwarted Milos Kerkez with an excellent save, earlier than an excellent piece of defending from Marquinhos stopped Virgil van Dijk from tapping within the rebound.
PSG punish hosts’ profligacy
Isak was changed by Cody Gakpo at half-time, and Safonov was required to maintain out an formidable drive from the Dutchman.
PSG’s hopes of killing off the tie suffered a setback when Doue limped off after a problem from Szoboszlai, and that preceded Liverpool’s greatest spell of the match, Ryan Gravenberch lashing extensive after a shock foray ahead and Kerkez failing to take advantage of an excellent cross from Salah.
The hosts appeared to have a lifeline after Alexis Mac Allister went down beneath the problem of Willian Pacho and referee Maurizio Mariani promptly pointed to the spot, solely to overturn his choice after a visit to the pitchside monitor.
Mac Allister then headed extensive from shut vary and substitute Rio Ngumoha drew a superb save from Safonov after slicing in from the left, and Dembele confirmed the leading edge Liverpool lacked when he put the tie to mattress.
PSG have been in cruise management thereafter, and the icing on the cake got here as Dembele made no mistake with a easy end after being teed up by Bradley Barcola.
