Category: UEFA Champions League

There is another game to be played but on this evidence Barcelona will do so just for the fun of it, and there may be no one having as much fun as they are right now. Their captain, Raphinha, refused to admit as much, flashing a knowing smiling as he said so, but a second Champions League semi-final in a decade is virtually secure already after all three of their fantastic forward line scored en route to a 4-0 victory against Borussia Dortmund at Montjuic. The last was taken by a 17-year-old who may already be considered the best player on the continent. And if he is not, perhaps it’s because a teammate is.

After all, while Lamine Yamal completed a near-perfect Barcelona performance with a gorgeous 14th goal of the season, Pedri continues to glide across a different plane and Robert Lewandowski, 20 years Lamine’s senior, scored his 39th and 40th. At 37, the Pole is the Champions League’s second top-scorer; the man above him is Raphinha, who also scored here as Barcelona reached 144 goals this season and almost certainly the next round, and perhaps beyond. They will take some stopping, that’s for sure.

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Arsenal’s ‘star boy’ is the player who epitomises Mikel Arteta’s team and he was hugely influential against Real Madrid

It was a brilliant teaser, one that had Arsenal fans smiling and shaking their heads, protesting loudly, essentially calling it immoral. Deal or no deal. They win the Premier League title. But they sell Bukayo Saka.

It was posted by the @goalglobal TikTok account at the start of last season and the reactions of those in front of the camera shone a light on just how loved Saka is at Arsenal. The consensus was no deal. It would not be worth it because some things just mean more. “That’s our star boy, that’s like your son,” one of the supporters said. The video was liked by 3 million people.

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The reigning champions were undone by Michel Platini, Zbigniew Boniek and Paolo Rossi in March 1983

By That 1980s Sports Blog

Sometimes you have to hold up your hands and recognise that your defeat was more down to the skills of your opponent than your own failings. Take Aston Villa’s loss to Juventus in the quarter-finals of the European Cup in 1983. Thousands of fans left Villa Park after the first leg knowing their team’s grip on the European Cup had loosened. Villa were beaten 2-1 at home in the first leg and 3-1 away in Turin a fortnight later, but there was no disgrace in losing to that Juventus team.

When the draw for the last eight was made in December 1982, Villa were given one of the hardest possible tests Europe could provide. Liverpool, drawn against Polish team Widzew Lodz, were installed as 13-8 favourites to win the trophy, with Juventus priced at 11-4. Villa’s odds of 13-2 highlighted the task before them.

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Two majestic free-kicks from Declan Rice, the first of his professional career, inspired a stunning first-leg victory

It’s been a season of incessant frustration for Arsenal. Yet it could end with them winning the European Cup for the first time. Right now, in this exhilarating, occasionally bowel-loosening window just before kick-off, anything is possible. And nights like this don’t come along very often: it’s only Arsenal’s second Champions League quarter-final in the last 15 years.

This is great fun: Sean Ingle’s minute-by-minute report of Arsenal’s win in the Bernabeu 19 years ago.

47 min - GOAL! Real Madrid 0 - 1 Arsenal Brilliant from Thierry Henry! Absolutely brilliant! From just over the half-way line he turns past Ronaldo and ghosts past three Real defenders before coolly sliding it into the far corner from 15 yards. Superb.

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• Goalkeeper reveals side have trained to deal with them
• ‘The first thing is not to concede too many corners’

Thibaut Courtois has revealed that Real Madrid are wary of Arsenal’s prowess from set pieces and have been preparing specifically for the challenge of facing them.

The reigning European champions come into Tuesday’s first leg of their Champions League quarter-final at the Emirates following a 2-1 home defeat by Valencia in La Liga that left them four points behind leaders Barcelona. A poor defensive performance saw Madrid concede their 10th goal from a corner this season, although Carlo Ancelotti will welcome back Courtois and David Alaba from injury against Mikel Arteta’s side.

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• Winger ‘focused on coming back stronger’ after injury
• Arteta says quarter-final biggest game of coaching career

Bukayo Saka has said he feels mentally refreshed after missing three months through injury and believes Arsenal are ready to “write our own story” against Real Madrid in their Champions League quarter-final.

Saka is expected to start against Madrid on Tuesday in the first leg for the first time since rupturing a hamstring in December, having come on in the past two matches. The Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, said having the 23-year-old back for what he described as the biggest game of his coaching career was a massive boost as his team attempt to overcome the reigning champions.

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Paris Saint-Germain, who beat Liverpool with verve and energy, are the upstart newcomers among big-name quarter-finalists

Narratives are never as straightforward as they may appear. One era does not yield easily to another. What constitutes an era changes over time. While history is happening it’s often hard to make sense of it; patterns seem to emerge that, from the perspective of 20 years later are meaningless, or culs-de-sac. That seems particularly true this season. As the Champions League reaches its quarter-final stage this coming week, it feels that one age has ended and another has yet to materialise.

The past was a simpler place. First there was the age of dominance by Real Madrid and Benfica, teams from the capitals of Iberian nations under right-wing dictatorships, packed with great individuals. Then came systematisation, catenaccio and the Italian ascendancy, followed, with a brief period of crossover, by the era of domination by the northern European industrial powers, skipping swiftly over Celtic and Manchester United to the Dutch and Total Football and then Bayern Munich. Then came the long period of English superiority before the Heysel ban, after which everything gets more complicated.

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• Real Madrid players face inquiry for Atlético celebrations
• Rüdiger and Ceballos also under the spotlight

Uefa has opened an investigation into a possible breach of disciplinary regulations by several Real Madrid players at the end of their recent Champions League match at Atlético Madrid. The inquiry centres on allegations of improper conduct by Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior, Dani Ceballos and Antonio Rüdiger, Uefa revealed on Thursday.

Real Madrid face Arsenal in the quarter-finals of the competition on 8 and 16 April. If Uefa’s investigation results in player suspensions, they are likely to affect their availability for that tie.

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• ‘It’s not the first time he’s said that’
• Capello said Guardiola ruined Italian football

Pep Guardiola has responded sarcastically to Fabio Capello’s claim that he is arrogant, has “ruined Italian football” and has made the sport boring. The former England coach offered his view of Guardiola to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo this week. On Friday Manchester City’s manager was asked whether he listened to someone of the Italian’s stature in the game.

“I listen to everything that people say about me. Everything. So be careful. I am controlling you,” he said as a joke. “It’s not the first time that Mr Fabio Capello said that. I’m not good enough to win Italian football. Italian football is much, much more important than the way you do it. A big hug from Fabio. A big hug.”

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• ‘We can compete against the best in the world’
• Midfielder excited at prospect of facing PSG

Not so long ago, John McGinn presumed a detour to the Paris Saint-Germain club shop on a family holiday as a kid, getting kitted out en route to Disneyland, would be the closest he got to playing at the Parc des Princes. Unai Emery is a former PSG manager, Marco Asensio is on loan from the Ligue 1 club, but McGinn’s ties are more modest, if not tenuous.

“The only place I’ve been there is the shop,” he says, smiling. “We were in a big campervan and stopped off in Paris. I think I was about seven or eight … I remember getting a PSG strip.”

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While the first-leg shellacking Arsenal dished out to PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands meant that Wednesday night’s return leg was predictably low on drama, there was at least one moment of highly performative nonsense for fans at the Emirates to enjoy. Handed a rare start by Mikel Arteta, Oleksandr Zinchenko repaid his manager by firing his side ahead with a terrific strike but very pointedly refused to celebrate his first ever Bigger Cup goal for reasons that initially seemed to baffle his own teammates, PSV’s players, both sets of supporters and anyone like Football Daily with so little going on in their life that they’d tuned in to watch this 90-minute long foregone conclusion unfold on TV.

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The quarter-finals have been decided with a dash of controversy. We hand out honours and dishonours from the latest round of action

Real Madrid

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Diego Simeone’s side lost to their city rivals yet again, in a fashion that was unbelievable and yet so very believable

One day, Diego Simeone said, in those quiet moments when they are alone with their thoughts and memories, Real Madrid’s players will think of Atlético Madrid and how they made them suffer. But the real trauma, he knows, will for ever be theirs. In the final moments before this latest European derby, the first at the Metropolitano, a huge mosaic had declared that following Atlético “kills me … and gives me life”. At the end of it, once fate had found another, still crueller way of twisting the knife, of delivering the inevitable, the coach pushed his footballers and his fans together, applauding so hard his hands hurt almost as much as their hearts.

“I am proud of them,” he said afterwards. “I am happy, honestly. I am happy. I am happy. Why? Because we competed in a way that was exemplary. We might not have been able to beat Real Madrid in the Champions League. Sure. Of course. We couldn’t. But they had a bad time of it, every time. They will remember us for a long time. While enjoying having beating us, but knowing and saying to themselves: ‘Facing that lot was messed up, look how hard they made it for us, always.’ Our people leave with the pain of having been knocked out, of course, but knowing that their team gave everything. I go in peace. Losing, but in peace.”

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There were no problems for Aston Villa and Arsenal as they both progressed to the quarter finals

“You have to feel for Nathan Butler-Oyedeji,” writes Kieran McKintosh. “He’s 22, still not had a proper first-team appearance, not even scored on loan at Cheltenham or Accrington, and even in a game like this where it basically doesn’t matter who Arteta plays, a defender who is leaving at the end of the season gets a start up top before he does. Ouch.”

I have a feeling the young lad’s long-term future is not at Arsenal.

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Atlético were the better side for the most part, but Real did what they always do, with a little help from the eagle-eyed VAR

4 min: … while on the touchline, Diego Simeone tries his level best to retain his supercool. Carlo chewing at his gum with a bit more vigour, though.

2 min: The roof of the Metropolitano, as you’d expect, is currently spinning off towards Catalonia. The poor clearance Griezmann intercepted was by Raúl Asencio. Everyone in Real white looking around at each other stunned!

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