Liverpool, City through to Champions League semis

Liverpool booked a Champions League semi-final showdown against Villarreal in Wednesday’s 3-3 draw against Benfica, while Manchester City’s goalless draw away to Atletico Madrid mean they’ll face Real Madrid in their semi-final.

Jurgen Klopp’s side already had one foot in the last four after winning 3-1 in the quarter-final first leg in Lisbon.

They were on cruise control for long spells in the second leg at Anfield, but had to hold their nerve before advancing 6-4 on aggregate after an uncharacteristic meltdown in the closing stages.

Ibrahima Konate put Liverpool ahead before Goncalo Ramos equalised late in the first half.

When Roberto Firmino netted twice after the interval, the tie looked all but over.

However, Roman Yaremchuk and Darwin Nunez struck for Benfica to briefly give the visitors hope of an astonishing escape act, before Liverpool finally restored order.

The Reds will face Spanish side Villarreal in the semi-finals as they look to reach their 10th Champions League final and claim a seventh title in the competition.

Despite Villarreal’s impressive wins over Bayern Munich and Juventus in the last two rounds, Liverpool will be firm favourites to make a third Champions League final in the last five seasons.

That would put them a step closer to an incredible clean-sweep of all four major trophies in one campaign.

Klopp made seven changes from Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Premier League leaders Manchester City as he opted to keep his stars fresh for Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final against Pep Guardiola’s side at Wembley.

Manchester City defender John Stones praised his team’s “incredible” composure in a fiery encounter with Atletico Madrid.

Kevin De Bruyne scored the only goal of the tie in the first leg in Manchester and City held on despite a bad-tempered finish to the return leg in the Spanish capital.

Atletico centre-back Felipe was sent off late on for a wild swipe at Phil Foden, an incident that triggered a mass brawl in the corner of the pitch and resulted in more than 12 minutes of stoppage time being played.

“We know that they sometimes try and make things happen like that and we dealt with it really well,” Stones told BT Sport.

“It is not nice to talk about and I don’t want to dwell on it because over the two legs we played incredible against such an experienced side in what they do.

“We kept our tempers and it is easy to get drawn into stuff like that.”

He added: “We knew it was not an easy place to come, it is a hostile environment, it was a difficult night all round and how we defended and controlled ourselves over the two legs was incredible.”

Guardiola opted not to get involved in a war of words with his Spanish opponents.

When asked if he thought Atletico had gone too far, he said: “Nothing to say.”

“I cannot talk about what other people do.” (AFP)