Man City down Leicester in League Cup shootout, Burton through
LONDON (Reuters) - Holders Manchester City held their nerve to beat Leicester City 3-1 on penalties and reach the League Cup semi-finals after an entertaining last-eight tie ended 1-1 on Tuesday.
City’s Oleksandr Zinchenko fired the winner in the shootout after hosts Leicester missed three of their four spot kicks.
City had taken the lead through Kevin De Bruyne’s rifled finish early on but Leicester clawed their way back into the encounter with a brilliant finish from Marc Albrighton.
With no extra time in League Cup matches this season, the game went straight to penalties where Leicester’s Christian Fuchs fired over, while James Maddison and Caglar Soyuncu saw tame efforts saved by City keeper Arijanet Muric.
“In the end the keeper helped us,” said De Bruyne. “He’s got veins of ice. He did what he had to do in the shootout.”
City will be joined in the last four by Nigel Clough’s Burton Albion after the third-tier side shocked Championship (second-tier) team Middlesbrough with a goal from Jake Hesketh.
Manchester City and Leicester fielded heavily-changed sides although the visitors looked far more potent on paper with Sergio Aguero and De Bruyne returning to the starting lineup, having only just returned to action after injury.