The top tournament of European club football, the UEFA Champions League, has seen its fair share of drama over the years. Dominance, underdogs and world-class tactics and players have been on full display in this season’s edition. The second leg of the UCL quarter finals began on Tuesday, including a heavyweight battle between Spanish giants, FC Barcelona and the always exciting German side, Borussia Dortmund. For those new to European Football, every tournament contains a group stage and a knockout stage. During the knockout stage, every matchup will be played twice, the winner advances on score by aggregate, which is the combined score of the two games played. Barca dominated the first leg of this matchup; the Catalans Polish striker, Robert Lewandowski, netted two goals against his former team en route to a decisive 4-0 victory. Borussia Dortmund, however, plays an extremely fast and highly intensive version of football, meaning that a comeback is certainly not out of the cards. Furthermore, the first leg took place in Barcelona, but the second leg will take place in Dortmund, giving BVB a slight advantage.
Dortmund was on the attack early, after just four minutes, BVB had a wonderful chance in front of the net; however, a deflection by Barca’s strong defense shut down the attack, keeping the aggregate score at 4-0. Just seven minutes later, Guinean national and Dortmund striker, Serhou Guirassy, delivered BVB their first goal after a wonderfully taken penalty shot. Five minutes later, the Yellows were through on goal again, but an offside ruling by the official disallowed the goal. The match entered the second half remaining 4-1 on aggregate; however, this would change only four minutes later after Guirassy scored a header to pull BVB closer. At this point, Hansi Flick and the rest of La Blaugrana were feeling the heat and the pressure and switched their more defensive approach to an offensive attack. Barca would be rewarded in the 53rd minute after an own goal by Ramy Bensebaini. This goal changed the course of the match, flipping it on its head. BVB was now down three goals with 40 minutes left. Guirassy ended up scoring another goal in the 76th minute to finish off the hat-trick, but at that point, the match was too far gone. Barcelona advances to the last four after a 5-3 victory on aggregate and their hunt for a sixth Champions League title will continue.
