For the first time in six seasons, Barcelona booked a place in the semi-final of the Champions League, despite a 3-1 loss for Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday, with a 5-3 aggregated score Die Hansi Flick's Kant Doornam.
Serhou Guirassy yielded a brilliant hat trick for Dortmund to condemn Barcelona for their first defeat in all matches this year, but it was not enough to destroy the commander of the Catalans with a 4-0 lead in the first place at Montjuic.
Despite their impressive performance in the first stage, Barcelona was seriously under the pump in Signal Iduna Park on Tuesday.
After a flurry of early half chances during the opening minutes, Dortmund was rewarded with a penalty in the eighth minute when Pascal Gross was knocked down by Wojciech Szczesny in the box.
Guirassy is not fermented from 12 meters and quietly donated the ball straight through the middle to open the locks.
Dortmund thought they had another one in a fast time when Felix Nmecha and Gross together to put the ball into the net, but the goal was excluded from offside.
The hosts continued to accumulate the pressure, with another series of half chances in the first half, mainly due to impressive performance by Gross and Karim Adeyemi, although Barcelona managed to keep them at a distance.
Dortmund persisted and was rewarded for their conviction with a different goal in the 49th minute, while Guirassy nodded home from Ramy Bensebaini's Flicked Pass over the face of the goal.
Bensebaini gave Barcelona a breathing room shortly thereafter, while he turned the ball into his own net after Gerard Martin's Cut-Back Cross in the box.
Guirassy completed his hat trick in the 76th minute to keep Barcelona in a place of trouble, because the Guinea-International set off the approval of Ronald Arajo to slide the ball past Szczesny.
Julian Brandt had a goal that was allowed for the outside only three minutes later, while Dortmund continued to believe, but with two goals that were still needed to bring the match to extra time, the hosts gradually no longer hit steam.
Barcelona, meanwhile, will consider himself incredibly happy that he has escaped this second stage and Flick will know that they cannot afford mistakes they are making for a semi -final collision against one of Inter Milan or Bayern München, who face each other on Wednesday.
Barcelona in the Semis.#Ucl pic.twitter.com/uwfxwmvacf
– UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) 15 April 2025
Data Debrief: Guirassy seems like Dortmund Record Breaker
Despite the loss, Guirassy can be very proud of his performance. The frontman of Dortmund is currently the top scorer of the competition with 13 goals to his name.
This makes him the first Dortmund player who scores more than 10 goals in a campaign and the previous joint record of Erling Haaland and Robert Lewandowski both scored 10 goals in 2020-21 and 2012-13 respectively.
Guirassy also only became the fourth Dortmund player who scored a hat trick in the Champions League, after Lewandowski (April 2013 against Real Madrid), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (March 2017 against Benfica) and Karim Adeyemi (October 2024 against Celic).
Dortmund was largely because of the impressive performance of Guirassy, and ended the game with 3.85 expected goals, while Barcelona could only manage a very pedestrians 0.49 xg.
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