Ajax stun Juventus to advance to Champions League semi-finals
Relive all the action from the Allianz Stadium
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Your support makes all the difference.Ajax followed up their elimination of Real Madrid by producing a spell-binding display of inventive, passing football to win 2-1 away to Juventus on Tuesday and end the Serie A team's dreams of winning the Champions League.
Ajax's 19-year-old captain Matthijs de Ligt headed the winner from the corner in the 67th minute of the quarter-final second leg as the Dutch side came from behind to clinch a 3-2 aggregate win and reach the last four for the first time since 1996/97.
Cristiano Ronaldo, aiming for a fourth successive Champions League title after winning the last three with Real Madrid, put Juventus ahead in the 28th minute with a typically emphatic header, his sixth goal of the competition.
But Donny van de Beek levelled six minutes later before the visitors swept Juventus aside in the second half with wave after wave of attacks as they earned a semi-final against Manchester City or Tottenham Hotspur.
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Good afternoon and welcome to our live coverage of Barcelona vs Manchester United in the Champions League.
Miguel Delaney is in Barcelona for us this evening and wrote the following preview ahead of the match:
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has spent the last few days trying to whip his players up, but in a different way to recently, since there was something else he was trying to play down.
This time, as he sat in the Nou Camp press room, he just wasn’t getting into all the talk about 1999. When a Catalan journalist inevitably asked him about it ahead of Manchester United’s Champions League quarter-final second leg in Barcelona, Solskjaer came out with the following: “I don’t look back on that night too often.”
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Jonathan Liew is at Camp Nou tonight and, despite the magnetic lustre of Messi, Luis Suarez and co. who will attempt to wreak havoc in attack, it is Barcelona's often overlooked defence who United will find equally difficult to combat tonight.
The Camp Nou really is one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world...
There's been interest in Philippe Coutinho over the past few weeks as the transfer window start to kick into gear, but Barcelona have told potential suitors that the playmaker is not for sale.
And don't forget Juventus host Ajax tonight in another knife-edge tie. The Italian champions clung on to a 1-1 draw in Amsterdam, but were thoroughly outplayed. Can Ajax produce another performance of the same ilk tonight in Turin?
In a worrying story, the Dutch side will have to do without at least 54 of their travelling fans at the Allianz Stadium this evening after a group of supporters were found to be carrying weapons on arrival in Turin.
We've given plenty of love for Barcelona's palatial home already, but Juventus have their own 21st century cathedral of European football primed for a huge night of Champions League action:
Ernesto Valverde is a more pragmatist than romantic as a manager, and with the league virtually wrapped up the Barcelona manager opted to rest the entirety of his anticipated outfield lineup in Saturday's 0-0 draw with Huesca.
With Lionel Messi's facial injury but a flesh wound and no other fresh injury concerns, it seems likely we'll see the same eleven players who started the first leg on the team sheet when news emerges in the next 45 minutes or so.
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