{"id":10606,"date":"2014-04-02T20:58:03","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T20:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=10606"},"modified":"2014-04-02T20:58:27","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T20:58:27","slug":"psg-topple-chelsea-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=10606","title":{"rendered":"PSG topple Chelsea in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ezequiel<\/a>
Ezequiel Lavezzi: Celebrates his early opening goal for PSG<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PSG secured a 3-1 victory over Chelsea in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final in Paris on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Ezequiel Lavezzi opened the scoring for Laurent Blanc’s hosts on four minutes with a sweetly-struck half-volley, but Eden Hazard kept his cool from the penalty spot on 27 to draw Jose Mourinho’s men level.<\/p>\n

Hazard hit the upright in a lively first half for the Belgian playmaker – but the Parisians gained a first-leg lead to take to London next Tuesday when David Luiz turned a free-kick from Lavezzi into his own net just after the hour mark.<\/p>\n

The visitors tried to ensure PSG only had a one-goal advantage as they defended deep in the closing stages – but a magical run from Javier Pastore in stoppage time saw him jink past three Chelsea defenders before steering a low drive past Cech at his near post to make it 3-1 on the night.<\/p>\n

Chelsea got off to the worst possible start as PSG were ahead early on, when Blaise Matuidi’s left-wing cross was superbly controlled by Lavezzi, who thumped a left-footed half-volley into the roof of the net from 16 yards.<\/p>\n

Luiz’s scuffed shot was easily saved on 18 minutes by Salvatore Sirigu, while the lively Lavezzi fired into the sidenetting under pressure from Gary Cahill.<\/p>\n

Chelsea slowly recovered their composure and were awarded a penalty on 27 minutes when Thiago Silva clumsily fouled Oscar in the 18-yard box, giving referee Milorad Mazic no option but to point to the spot. Hazard made no mistake with the spot-kick, rolling the ball into the bottom left-hand corner.<\/p>\n

The equaliser saw the visitors take control of proceedings, but the hosts were still a threat on the break, with Petr Cech saving Lavezzi’s low shot on 31.<\/p>\n

Hazard nearly grabbed a second goal of the night after sweetly volleying a cross from Willian, only to see his left-footed strike smack the upright.<\/p>\n

Edinson Cavani appealed for a penalty just before the break after going down under close attention from Cahill, but Mazic was unmoved and waved away the hosts’ protests.<\/p>\n

In the second half, Lavezzi continued to pose a threat, steering a header from a left-wing cross inches over the crossbar.<\/p>\n

And it was the Argentina striker who created PSG’s second goal on 62 minutes, when his free-kick into the heart of the Chelsea penalty box ricocheted off the unlucky Luiz’s shin yards from goal and rolled into the net.<\/p>\n

That goal came minutes after Mourinho had replaced Andre Schurrle with striker Fernando Torres.<\/p>\n

A more interesting substitution came on 68 when Zlatan Ibrahimovic went off with what looked like a pulled muscle, to be replaced by Lucas Moura. The second leg takes place at Stamford Bridge next Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Credit: Sky Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PSG secured a 3-1 victory over Chelsea in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final in Paris on Wednesday. Ezequiel Lavezzi opened the scoring for Laurent Blanc’s hosts on four minutes with a sweetly-struck half-volley, but Eden Hazard kept his cool from the penalty spot on 27 to draw Jose Mourinho’s men level. Hazard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":10607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3,38],"class_list":["post-10606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}