Benfica may have lost to Liverpool in their quarter finals game , but there is a winner in their squad: Goncalo Ramos.
He made a cherished history for himself by scoring his first goal in the tournament.
“It’s fantastic for me to score in the Champions League for the first time, but nobody is happy,” Ramos said. “We ended up going out, but we have had a great journey,” he said after the match.
Liverpool proved too strong for Benfica in spite of being held to a 3-3 draw at Anfield a week after winning 3-1 in Lisbon.
They now meet Villarreal, conquerors of Bayern Munich, in the last four ties which begin at the end of the month.
Manchester City meanwhile endured a nervous night at Atletico Madrid as they secured a goalless draw in their quarter-final second leg which gave them progress 1-0 on aggregate.
Pep Guardiola’s English Premier League leaders now face a mouth-watering clash against record winners Real Madrid.
But they will first focus on Wembley where they meet Liverpool, a point behind them domestically, in the FA Cup semi-finals.
The teams also drew 2-2 in Manchester last weekend and Klopp took the chance to rotate heavily given the heavy schedule facing his players.
Star forwards Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane were rested along with defender Virgil Van Dijk but Liverpool always had an element of control.
“I think we’d want to do better overall, but we started the game well and could have scored one or two more goals,” Liverpool midfielder Jordan Henderson said.
“It was really comfortable but we’re disappointed at the goals we conceded. We got through to the next round which is the most important thing.”
Ibrahima Konate, who opened the scoring in Portugal, repeated the trick by heading in Konstantinos Tsimikas’ 21st minute corner-kick.
But Gonçalo Ramos scored to draw the visitors level from a break of the ball soon after.
Farcical defending ended Benfica’s hopes when goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos spilled the ball and Roberto Firmino tapped in a cross from Diogo Jota 10 minutes after the restart.
Firmino then volleyed his second in the 65th from an excellent Tsimikas free-kick, only for Roman Yaremchuk and Darwin Núñez to draw Benfica level.
Only a brilliant save from Alisson stopped Núñez immediately cutting the deficit to one with seven minutes remaining.
But Liverpool settled down and saw out the tie.
