
Victor Osimhen was passed fit and featured as Napoli earned a valuable 1-1 draw away to Barcelona at Camp Nou, in their Europa League first-leg round of 16 clash on Thursday.
Osimhen was a doubt for the game due to a knee issue but made the starting eleven for Napoli.
He was then replaced by Dries Mertens with 10 minutes left.
Nico Gonzalez stung Alex Meret’s gloves at the near post, Osimhen doing the same after springing the offside trap on an inspired Piotr Zielinski through ball.
Kalidou Koulibaly made a sensational tackle on Adama Traore, who was offside anyway, and Ferran Torres wasted a golden opportunity by blasting over after a heavy touch.
Moments later, Napoli took the lead instead on 29 minutes after Eljif Elmas sent Jordi Alba to ground with a dummy and rolled across for Zielinski, whose first shot from 10 yards was parried by Marc-Andre Ter Stegen, but the Poland international smashed the rebound into the roof of the net.
Ferran Torres nodded wide from a promising position and Barca saw a lot more of the ball after the restart, but the decisive moment was a Traore cross that grazed the fingertips of Juan Jesus.
Nobody had complained at the time, but the referee was called back by VAR and awarded the penalty, which Ferran Torres calmly converted to make it 1-1 on 59 minutes.
At the Signa Iduna Park in Germany, Joe Aribo provided an assist as Rangers shocked Borussia Dortmund 4-2.
Aribo set up Alfredo Morelos who made it 2-0 in favour of Rangers in the 41st minute.
Also in action for Rangers was Calvin Bassey who saw action for 90 minutes while Leon Balogun did not make the matchday squad.
And in the Europa Conference League first-leg round of 16 fixture, Peter Olayinka was in action for Slavia Prague who edged Fenerbahce 3-2 in Turkey, while Raphael Onyedika helped Midtjylland beat PAOK 1-0.
By James Agberebi
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