🏆 Botafogo dodge late bullet at Palmeiras; River and Peñarol advance | OneFootball

The Copa Libertadores round-of-16 clashes are all but wrapped up, as three more ties will conclude Wednesday evening. Here is what went down.

Palmeiras 2-2 Botafogo

Scorers: Lopez 86′, Rony 90′ ; Jesus 55′, Savarino 64′

After a dramatic first-leg in Rio, Botafogo avoided a late collapse to stun Palmeiras at the Allianz Parque and move onto the quarterfinals from the heated all-Brazilian showdown.

While Botafogo currently sit top of the league in Brazil, Palmeiras have been particularly stubborn in the Libertadores in recent seasons, but that didn’t appear to faze Artur Jorge’s side.

After a cagey 55 minutes, the home crowd was silenced by Botafogo’s first-leg hero, Igor Jesus, who tapped home a superb team move to open the scoring and put the visitors two ahead on aggregate.

To make matters worse for the hosts, Jefferson Savarino cut through the Palmeiras defense just minutes later slot home the second on the night and all but drive the final nail into the home side’s coffin.

Palmeiras bagged two late goals to potentially reignite the tie and make the visitors sweat, but it was too-little, too-late from the Verdão. And while a third goal hit the back of the net, seemingly to pull the hosts out from the depths, a handball in the box was revealed by VAR to save Botafogo from a famous collapse.

River Plate 2-1 Talleres

Scorers: Borja 34′, Simón 50′ ; Girotti 70′

River Plate eased past Talleres with a comfortable win at the Monumental, booking passage to the quarterfinals.

A goal in each half was all River needed, and the scoring was open by Miguel Borja in the final 10 minutes of the half to ease the tension of the tie.

While the visitors may have had a flicker of hope heading into the second interval, the tie was all but to bed just five minutes in when Santiago Simón pulled off an audacious finish to extend River’s lead to three on aggregate.

A late Federico Girotti strike saw the former River man cut the deficit, but it was merely consolation for a Talleres side who seemed to deflate after River’s second goal.

The Strongest 1-0 Peñarol

Scorers: Triverio (P) 44′

After a dominant first-leg win at the Campeón del Siglo last week, Peñarol just simply needed to survive La Paz to book their passage to the last-eight, and they did just that.

While The Strongest bagged their first goal in the tie just before halftime through a Enrique Triverio spot-kick, the three-goal deficit on aggregate was far too big of a mountain to climb.

With La Paz now in their rearview mirror, Peñarol will turn their attention to the quarterfinals.