Champions League Wednesday wrap-up: Double delight for PSG, Atletico Madrid

The final two first legs of the Champions League's quarter-final round were played on Wednesday, with Paris Saint-Germain hosting Liverpool and Atletico Madrid visiting La Liga rivals Barcelona.

Here are some of the bigger talking points from Wednesday's Champions League action.

PSG cruise against Liverpool

It was nothing short of a dominant night at the Parc des Princes for PSG, who claimed a 2-0 victory over Liverpool but probably should have walked away with a much larger margin of victory.

The proof is in the post-match statistics, which show the Parisians holding massive advantages in shots (17-3), shots on target (7-0), possession (74-26) and several other stats as Wednesday's match felt like a training exercise at times.

That the scoreline wasn't bigger is a positive for the Reds, who got a standout performance out of goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili.

Additionally, Liverpool's Ibrahima Konaté was extremely fortunate not to give up two penalties after hard challenges in the box went unpunished — the first of which was a result of a VAR intervention after a penalty was originally called.

Arne Slot's men are now left to lick their wounds and hope for a much better outing next week at Anfield.

Advantage Atleti

Barcelona will feel hard done by after a good opening half of their first leg against visiting Atletico Madrid, in which the Catalans looked the better side but couldn't break through.

Then, just a minute before halftime, a moment of madness flipped the match on its head as Barça defender Pau Cubarsí was shown red for denial of an obvious goal scoring opportunity. The ensuing free-kick was brillliantly struck by Julian Alvarez, giving Atletico a lead going into halftime and an entirely new outlook on the game.

To their credit, Barça didn't complete fold after that rough end to the first half, and they continued to probe in an effort to equalize. However, Alexander Sørloth put the match out of reach in the 70th minute with Atletico's second goal of the game, and that's how it ended as the Rojiblancos left the Spotify Camp Nou with a 2-0 victory.

It was the first Atletico win at the venerable stadium in 20 years, and it gives them a massive leg up on Barça ahead of next week's match in Madrid.

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