Hello football fans, sorry for the delay, been a little busy, much like our participants in the Champions’ League quarterfinals. On Tuesday, two of the semi-finalists were confirmed, in PSG and FC Barcelona.

PSG 5 – 4 Aston Villa:

Wow. Just wow. I thought that this tie would be the most exciting to watch for a neutral in the quarterfinals, and I was more correct than I thought I’d be. For the Villains in their first UCL appearance in many years, this tie had everything their fans could’ve wanted. Starting with the away leg in Paris, Morgan Rogers gave the Birmingham faithful something to roar about when he opened the scoring 35 minutes into the tie. However, this PSG team is really no slouch, and proved it, dominating the rest of that match and scoring 3 goals to take a two goal lead to Villa Park.

The second leg began just as fast as the previous leg ended, with Hakimi and Nuno Mendes firing PSG to a 2-0 lead on the night, and a 5-1 lead on aggregate just 27 minutes into the 2nd leg. In front of their home fans however, Villa was not going to just go quietly into the night. A bit of luck went their way to grab the momentum back, when Youri Tielemans strike from range deflected off Pacho and into the net, bringing the Villa fans to life, and Villa within 3 goals again. Ten minutes into the second half, John McGinn produced a similar goal on a break, taking a powerful shot from the edge of the box, which also (unfortunately for him) deflected off Pacho again into the net. Marcus Rashford had a great strike denied with a fantastic save by Donnarumma, shortly before Rashford produced an impressive bit of dribbling to ease into the box and set up Ezri Konsa to sweep in Villa’s third of the night, making this a one goal tie. Villa kept pushing for the tying goal, but both Donnarumma and the PSG defenders managed to keep them out, including a last ditch volley from Ian Maatsen at the end of the match that was blocked off the line by Nuno Mendes. PSG advance by the narrowest of margins, but deservedly so I believe. Aston Villa certainly did themselves, and their fans, proud.

Barcelona 5 – 3 Borussia Dortmund:

This tie seemed like it was over after the first leg, when Barcelona swept Dortmund away at the Camp Nou for a 4-0 victory including a Lewandowski brace. In the second leg in Germany, Dortmund put up much more of a fight and had the Catalonians sweating. Just 11 minutes into the second leg, Serhou Guirassy converts a penalty to bring the aggregate score to 4-1. Just after the start of the second half, Guirassy scores again to make it 4-2 on aggregate, assisted by Ramy Bensebaini. Bensebaini’s moment of glory would soon turn to a nightmare, as just 5 minutes later, he turns in an OG to restore Barcelona’s 3 goal aggregate lead.

Serhou Guirassy wasn’t done just yet though. After a neat piece of work by Julian Duranville down the right wing to beat two defenders, his cross is deflected by Araujo right to Guirassy, who makes no mistake to complete his hat trick on the night and bring the score to 5-3 on aggregate. This would be Dortmund’s last glimmer of hope however, as Barcelona held strong until full time to advance to the semifinals. This match was also a rare rest for Pedri, who did not play at all and should benefit from the rest.

Arsenal 5 – 1 Real Madrid

Well this was something. Despite Arsenal being one of, if not the best, defensive teams in Europe, they were not the favorites going into their tie against the de facto owners of this competition, Real Madrid. Under the pressure of the bright lights at the Emirates, Declan Rice cooked. Two direct free kick goals, past Thibaut Courtois of all keepers, for his first ever career free kick goals. The mental damage this must have done to the Madrid players, who then conceded a third goal to Mikel Merino, the *checks notes*, striker? A 3-0 win at the Emirates had Arsenal fans planning the UCL trophy parade already, while the “Galacticos 2.0” started a mini-PR tour for the remontada they were about to complete in the second leg. All media coverage in the week leading up to the 2nd leg was about how the Madrid players “know” they will come back and win. After seeing Madrid win from improbably situations countless times in the UCL, who was in a place to tell them otherwise? Apparently, Mikel Arteta. Arsenal sat deep and defended for pretty much the entire first half, but in the second half took advantage of Madrid’s desperation, with Bukayo Saka atoning for an earlier missed penalty with the match’s first goal to give Arsenal a 4 goal aggregate lead. Vini Jr scored 2 minutes later to give some life to the Bernabeu, who insisted the comeback was on. In the end, Arsenal limited Madrid to just 3 shots on target in the match, Gabriel Martinelli added a 2nd goal late, and the gunners completed an impressive win to advance to the semifinals.

Inter Milan 4 – 3 Bayern Munich

This one hurt for Bayern. The UCL final this year is to be held at their home stadium, the Allianz Arena, which made the competition so much more important this year. As I saw someone else put it well: “Winning the Bundesliga is desirable for Bayern, but Europe is where their hearts truly lie.” As a result, there was a tremendous amount of pressure on Bayern going into this tie against a formidable opponent. The first leg at the Allianz started with Bayern having the majority of the ball, and the pressure. Against the run of play, Lautaro Martinez scores a beautiful goal with the outside of his foot off a deft layoff from Marcus Thuram. Bayern would continue to have most of the pressure, accumulating 2.30 xG in this match to Inter’s 0.78. However, the only goal they would have to show for it was from an emotional Thomas Muller, potentially in his last season with Bayern, in the 85th minute. This brought Bayern life, and they pushed on in hopes of scoring a 2nd, before Inter executed a clinical counter attack in the 88th minute, finished off by substitute Davide Frattesi, giving Inter a snatch-and-grab 2-1 win in Germany. This meant Inter had a strong chance to advance, taking a lead back to the San Siro. In the 2nd leg, Bayern had even more of the ball, with 62% overall possession in the match, while Inter struggled to gain any momentum in the match. When Harry Kane scored in the 52nd minute to tie the aggregate score, it seemed long overdue for Bayern. Yet again though, Bayern couldn’t remain composed right after scoring. 58th and 61st minute goals from Martinez and Benjamin Pavard took the life right out of the Bavarians, and restored a 2 goal aggregate lead to Inter Milan not 10 minutes after Kane’s equaliser. A late goal from Eric Dier would bring Bayern within 1, but they could not find the net again, narrowly losing out by a single goal, leaving them wondering “what if”.

If the semi-finals are anything like the quarterfinals, we should be in for some good matchups! Just briefly, I think PSG have a stylistic advantage over Arsenal and I would have them as slight favorites, while I think Inter Milan will be value to get past Barcelona and make the final. Check back to see how it played out!

Cheers,

LM