In his first season in Italy after nine season with Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo returned to the Spanish capital for a Champions League Round of 16 match on Wednesday.

Facing Atlético Madrid with his new Italian club Juventus, Ronaldo was unsurprisingly a target of the home fans at the Wanda Metropolitano. He responded by mocking the Atleti fans, and Los Colchoneros responded by handing the Bianconeri a critical 2-0 defeat. 

Leroy Sané’s spectacular 85th minute free kick denied Schalke a famous victory over Manchester City in the first leg of their Champions League Round of 16 tie at Veltins-Arena. The footballer that Schalke groomed entered the match in the 78th minute and then hammered the dead ball seven minutes later to draw 10-man City level — and then Raheem Sterling muscled his way to goal for a dramatic 3-2 winner in the 90th minute. 

There were a lot of Liverpool vs Bayern Munich highlights from the Champions League Round of 16 first-leg match on Tuesday. Surprisingly, none of them included goals.

Neither team could find a way to break the deadlock as the teams settled for a 0-0 draw at Anfield ahead of a return trip to Allianz Arena in Munich on March 13. 

That the match finished scoreless came down to a combination of brilliant last-ditch defending and scuffed opportunities. The highlight of the match, however, was neither — just some really great, unwitting teamwork.

Barcelona and Lyon played to a 0-0 draw at the Parc Olympique Lyonnais on Tuesday in the first leg of a Champions League Round of 16 encounter, giving a slight edge to the Blaugrana ahead of the return leg at the Camp Nou on Mar. 13. 

The first half was a tubthumping affair with Lyon carving out three good opportunities, only to be denied twice by Marc-André ter Stegen while sending another effort blazing over.

France is a country with incredible footballing talent and the country won last year’s World Cup partly due to its remarkable squad depth. The depth of France’s talent starts in its domestic leagues. An example of this talent would be Ousmane Dembélé, Kylian Mbappè, Nicolas Pépé and Tanguy Ndombélé.

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The Video Assistant Referee is in use in the Champions League Round of 16 for the first time this week. So of course conspiracy theorists are already hard at work trying to figure out the Ajax disallowed goal that helped Real Madrid grab a 2-1 away win in the first leg of the Champions League Round of 16 on Wednesday. 

UEFA, thankfully, is smarter than the English FA and decided to start using VAR for the Champions League in the Round of 16 instead of waiting for next season. The first two matches Tuesday were without controversy and the VAR was not required. 

For all the talk of wingers Christian Pulisic and Jadon Sancho heading into Borussia Dortmund’s trip to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium Wembley Stadium, it was a Tottenham center back for who provided the game-changing moments from out wide.