It’s raining goals as Barca stun Benfica

liverpool: Liverpool became the first team to guarantee a place in the last-16 of the new Champions League format by beating Lille 2-1 on Tuesday, while Barcelona fought back from two goals down to stun Benfica 5-4 in a thriller.

Harvey Elliott’s bouncing, deflected shot gave Liverpool their seventh win from seven games, just after 10-man Lille had equalised following Mohamed Salah’s opening goal.

Liverpool needed a point at Anfield to be sure of reaching the Round of 16 as one of the top eight teams in the league stage, skipping the playoff round for teams ranked ninth to 24th.

Salah raced through in the 34th minute to sweep Liverpool ahead with his 22nd goal in all competitions this season. And when Lille’s Aissa Mandi was sent off just before the hour mark, Liverpool looked certain to extend their 100% record in the league phase.

Barcelona’s comeback win

It was a night of high drama in the Champions League with 33 goals scored across nine games. Nine of them came in Barcelona’s battle with Benfica.

Raphinha scored in stoppage time to complete a rousing comeback as Barcelona won in Lisbon despite having been 4-2 down with less than a quarter of an hour remaining.

Benfica’s Vangelis Pavlidis scored the third-fastest hat-trick at the start of a Champions League game, with two of his goals coming after errors by Barcelona goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny. Barcelona stay second with 18 points

from seven games.