PSG and Borussia reached the semi-finals of the Champions League
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In both quarterfinal matches of the Champions League, which ended on Tuesday, teams that after the first matches lost with a difference of one goal advanced. PSG, having conceded first on the road, defeated Barcelona with a score of 4:1, which was left with ten men already in the middle of the first half, and Borussia Dortmund beat Atlético Madrid in a very nice fight at home – 4:2.
Barcelona’s 3-2 away win over PSG last week, of course, did not guarantee anything for the Spanish giants. It was clear that the Parisians, who were in no way inferior to their opponents in terms of play and especially in composition, would play on the road solely to win. Moreover, this season Barcelona is hosting its guests not at the giant Camp Nou arena, which is being reconstructed, but at the Olympic Stadium, located on Mount Montjuïc. The home field factor is not so noticeable there, and this, according to her head coach Xavi, could not be forgotten.
True, after the game Xavi spoke about something else – unsatisfactory, in his opinion, refereeing. At first, Barcelona looked preferable, and the first goal, scored by Raphinha after Lamin Yamal’s cross, looked quite logical. This was already the Brazilian’s third goal in this two-game confrontation, but he was not destined to become its main hero. There was a lot of trouble ahead for his club, which began with the sending off of Uruguayan defender Ronald Araujo, who received a straight red card from Hungarian referee Istvan Kovacs for a foul on last-resort Bradley Barcol.
This episode, in which his ward, according to Javi, did not play up to such a serious punishment, became key. Having gained a numerical advantage, PSG rushed to victory at full speed. Even before the break, the score was equalized by Ousmane Dembele, who had played for Barcelona last season and now, finding himself on the right flank in front of his former teammate Marc-Andre ter Stegen, crossed in Vitigny’s cross. At the beginning of the second half, PSG increased the pressure at the opposing goal, and Vitinha himself struck an excellent shot into the far bottom corner, thanks to which the situation in the pair was leveled.
And then came another sending off – this time by Xavi himself, whom Kovac punished with a red card for unacceptable emotions on the touchline – and a perfect penalty by Kylian Mbappe, awarded for the demolition of Ousmane Dembele by defender João Cancelo. After that, a couple of dangerous moments involving Robert Lewandowski were neutralized by the Parisian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarrumma, and Mbappe finally scored a double, completing the brightest attack of PSG, during which his players struck several shots in a row.
The result was 4:1, and the Parisians reached the semi-finals of the Champions League for the fourth time in history. Let us remember that Barcelona lost to PSG at home with exactly the same score three years ago in the first meeting of the 1/8 finals, which then became decisive.
In the other pair, which consisted of Borussia Dortmund and Atletico Madrid, the situation changed fundamentally after the first half. The German club, which lost 1:2 away, scored two goals within five minutes. The first to score was Julian Brandt, who took advantage of Mats Hummels’s sumptuous off-foot pass from deep inside the pitch to shoot home goalkeeper Jan Oblak from close range from the left flank. The second goal, from approximately the same point but following a stylistically different combination involving Jadon Sancho and Marcel Sabitzer, was scored by Borussia’s Dutch defender Jan Matsen. Overall, Borussia had a significant advantage, although Atlético players also had chances to score. One of them was missed at the very beginning by Alvaro Morata, who did not use a one-on-one opportunity with the Swiss Dortmund goalkeeper Gregor Kobel, and the pressure performed by the Madrid team almost led to trouble for the hosts a couple of times.
Atlético Madrid head coach Diego Simeone made a triple substitution at half-time and immediately reaped dividends from it. In any case, the gap in the score quickly narrowed. There was this corner play that led to an own goal by Hummels, who tried to intercept the ball and awkwardly sent it into his own goal.
The most active among those whom Simeone threw into action in the second half was Argentine forward Angel Correa. It was he who, to the delight of his coach, equalized the score by hitting the ball into the Borussia goal net during a protracted attack. Back then, no one knew that the hosts would simply manage a luxurious two minutes that would knock out Atlético. First, forward Niklas Füllkrug, jumping high, managed to head the ball into the far corner after Sabitzer’s cross, and then the Austrian midfielder himself scored the fourth goal against the experienced Oblak. A spectacular 4-2 victory allowed Dortmund, who are struggling under head coach Edin Terzic in the Bundesliga, to do something they have not been able to do since the days of Jurgen Klopp – reach the semi-finals for the first time in eleven years, where their opponents will be PSG.
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