Highlights

The Cruz Azul curse continues. After being repelled by a combination of Club América goalkeeper Agustín Marchesín and the crossbar in the first leg, a poor piece of attempting to play out the back ultimately doomed Cruz Azul in the second — the ever impressive Edson Álvarez punished the slack play with a curling effort from the top of the box, and then the El Tri star registered a second at the death to confirm América’s 13th title. 

Cruz Azul failed to land a shot on target throughout the 90 minutes. 

The genius of Lionel Messi propelled Barcelona to a 5-0 victory over Levante on Sunday evening in Valencia — the Argentine was involved in all five goals with a hat-trick and two assists. Luis Suarez also had a goal and was heavily involved in setting up two of Messi’s. The 31-year-olds are alright. 

The first goal arrived in the 35th minute after Messi danced across the top of the box. With defenders circling and closing around him, Messi pulled off an impossible reverse ball which Suarez converted with sublime control. 

Liverpool’s ceaseless hammering of Manchester United finally yielded a breakthrough during a seven-minute second half spell that saw Xherdan Shaqiri score a brace of heavily deflected goals, a just reward for outshooting their opponent 36-6 on the way to a 3-1 win. 

In the end, it was a humiliating footballing lesson for Jose Mourinho’s side, and the only moment of respite for United was a terrible blunder from Alisson that allowed the Red Devils to stay level at 1-1 for 40 totally undeserved minutes.

Liverpool advanced to the Champions League Round of 16 in the most fraught style imaginable, relying on Mohamed Salah’s brilliant solo goal to triumph 1-0 over a Napoli side that spent the majority of the match mirroring the laissez-faire demeanor of manager Carlo Ancelotti. 

I imagine that Ancelotti and Napoli spent all manner of time preparing for the threat of Liverpool and Salah, but it really doesn’t matter when you point the Egyptian on a straight path toward your goal.