Football – Paris St Germain kept alive their dream of a first Champions League title yesterday by squeezing past Aston Villa 5-4 on aggregate after a thrilling second leg of their quarter-final which the English side won 3-2.
Ahead 3-1 from the first leg, PSG appeared to have sealed the contest within the first half-hour as their marauding fullbacks Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes scored from two flowing counter-attacks to stun the Villa Park crowd.
But Youri Tielemans revived hope with a 34th-minute deflected goal before Villa stunned the visitors early in the second half with two goals in two minutes from John McGinn and Ezri Konsa.
Villa poured forward, drawing a string of outstanding saves from PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma to preserve the aggregate win and enable his side to move into a semi-final against either Real Madrid or Arsenal.
PSG were hot favourites to win the quarter-final given their first-leg advantage and recent form, including sealing a fourth straight Ligue 1 title and reaching the final of the French Cup.
But Villa were not lacking belief themselves, especially at home where they were on a 17-match unbeaten run in all competitions. The hosts came out flying, nearly taking the lead from a corner in an early flurry of attacks.
However, PSG struck first blood in the 11th minute when Hakimi stroked the ball in after Villa’s usually ultra-reliable goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez pushed it into his path.
Sixteen minutes later, Mendes curled in Villa’s second goal off the post at the end of another fast-flowing counter-attack.
Tielemans’s first-half goal appeared unlikely to swing the tie but it inspired Villa to storm out in the second half, with McGinn letting fly from outside the box to score in the 55th minute, helped by a small deflection. Then Konza struck Villa’s third on the night after being set up with a brilliant dribble from Marcus Rashford.
One more goal would have put Villa level on aggregate but Donnarumma defied Rashford, Tielemans and then substitute Marco Asensio during a nerve-wracking finale.
Five-time European champions Barcelona reached their first Champions League semi-final in six seasons with a 5-3 aggregate victory despite being beaten 3-1 by Borussia Dortmund yesterday.
Serhou Guirassy scored a hat-trick for Dortmund to condemn Barca to their first defeat across all competitions this year but that could not prevent the Catalans from reaching the last four.
The Guinea international – the competition’s top scorer with 13 goals – opened his account with an 11th minute chipped penalty, and he headed in the hosts’ second goal four minutes after the restart as the hosts attempted to bounce back from last week’s 4-0 first leg loss.
Dortmund’s attempt to match Barcelona’s Champions League record of overturning a four-goal first leg deficit in a knockout stage was derailed by Ramy Bensebaini’s 54th minute own goal that settle Spanish nerves.
Guirassy completed his hat-trick in the 76th, pouncing on a defensive error, but, with Dortmund still needing two more goals to take the game to extra-time, the hosts gradually ran out of steam.
Barcelona will play either Inter Milan or Bayern Munich, who face each other today, in the last four.
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