🏆 River stun Talleres late; Botafogo down Palmeiras; Peñarol cruise | OneFootball

The Copa Libertadores round-of-16 continued Wednesday evening with six teams in action and plenty of drama. Here is what went down around the grounds.

Talleres 0-1 River Plate

Scorers: Díaz 86′

After the fireworks at Peñarol earlier in the night, there was considerably less goalmouth action in the all-Argentina showdown at the Mario Alberto Kempes.

The drama only kicked off on the hour mark when Lucas Suárez was shown a straight red card for a bad challenge on Adam Bareiro from behind, seeing Talleres sink to 10 men with a half-hour to play.

Yet despite the numerical inferiority, the hosts appeared to take a shock lead from a set-piece, but the linesman’s flag came to River’s rescue.

While it looked like the first-leg clash would fizzle out, Paulo Díaz stepped up to play hero and win it late for River dramatically, seeing the Argentine giants take a one-goal lead back to the Monumental.

Botafogo 2-1 Palmeiras

Scorers: Henrique 22′, Jesus 39′ ; Maurício 33′

It was a night of firsts at the Estádio Nilton Santos. The two Brazilian foes put on a show as Botafogo earned a remarkable victory to take into the second-leg.

The scoring was kicked off by Luiz Henrique, who collected a pass from Igor Jesus before finishing to set the home crowd alight and stun Palmeiras.

But the three-time winners responded well when summer-signing Maurício opened his account by somehow sending his shot past John Furtado, whose attempt to keep the shot out was a weak one.

Keeping up with the trend, Igor Jesus quickly put Botafogo back in front to bag his first goal for the club and potentially put concerns over the injury crisis up front to bed for now.

The visitors had plenty of chances in the second-half, but as the Allianz Parque has been a notoriously tough place to go and win, Palmeiras will surely have confidence in a second-leg turnaround.

Peñarol 4-0 The Strongest

Scorers: Fernández 9′, Silvera 16′, Báez 36′, Batista 72′

Peñarol marked their first round-of-16 game since 2011 with a thrashing of The Strongest to take a commanding lead in the tie.

It was dominance from the first whistle as the hosts took control of the ball and simply didn’t give it back to The Strongest, who did their best to cling on in the midst of the pressure.

But it didn’t take Peñarol long to take advantage, as Leonardo Fernández provided a cool finish to open the scoring less than 10 minutes before Maximiliano Silvera doubled the hosts lead, giving the Uruguayan outfit a healthy lead in the tie.

The first-half thumping would not end there however. Leonardo Fernández was at the heart of things once again for the hosts, this time picking out Jaime Báez with a stunning, line-breaking pass for the winger to slot home and put Peñarol three clear at the break.

While The Strongest may have managed to stop the bleed for nearly 30 minutes in the second-half, substitute Facundo Batista bundled the ball-home in a goalmouth scramble to extend the lead to four, all but closing the door on the tie.