Barcelona booked a place in the Champions League semi-finals for the first time in six seasons despite a 3-1 loss to Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday, with a 5-3 aggregate score taking Hansi Flick’s side through.
Serhou Guirassy netted a brilliant hat-trick for Dortmund to condemn Barcelona to their first defeat across all competitions this year, but it wasn’t enough to overturn the Catalans’ commanding 4-0 first-leg advantage at Montjuic.
Despite their impressive performance in the first leg, Barcelona found themselves severely under the pump at Signal Iduna Park on Tuesday.
After a flurry of early half chances across the opening minutes, Dortmund were rewarded with a penalty in the eighth minute as Pascal Gross was taken down by Wojciech Szczesny inside the box.
Guirassy made no mistake from 12 yards out, calmly dinking the ball straight down the middle to open the floodgates.
Dortmund thought they had another in quick time as Felix Nmecha and Gross combined to put the ball in the net, but the goal was ruled out for offside.
The hosts continued to pile on the pressure, with another series of half-chances across the first half, particularly through impressive performances from Gross and Karim Adeyemi, though Barcelona managed to keep them at bay.
Dortmund continued to persevere and were rewarded for their belief with another goal in the 49th minute, as Guirassy nodded home from Ramy Bensebaini’s flicked pass across the face of goal.
Bensebaini gave Barcelona some breathing room shortly after though, as he turned the ball into his own net following Gerard Martin’s cut-back cross inside the box.
Guirassy completed his hat-trick in the 76th minute to keep Barcelona in a spot of bother as the Guinea international plucked off Ronald Araujo’s clearance to slide the ball past Szczesny.
Julian Brandt had a goal disallowed for offside just three minutes later as Dortmund continued to believe, but with two goals still required to take the game to extra-time, the hosts gradually ran out of steam.
Barcelona, meanwhile, will consider themselves incredibly lucky to have escaped this second leg and Flick will know that they cannot afford such mistakes as they gear up for a semi-final clash against one of Inter Milan or Bayern Munich, who face each other on Wednesday.
Barcelona in the semis.#UCL pic.twitter.com/uWFxWMVACF
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) April 15, 2025
Data debrief: Guirassy shines as Dortmund record-breaker
Despite the loss, Guirassy can be very proud of his performance. The Dortmund frontman is the competition’s top scorer at the moment with 13 goals to his name.
This makes him the first Dortmund player to score more than 10 goals in a campaign, breaking the previous joint-record held by Erling Haaland and Robert Lewandowski – both of whom scored 10 goals in 2020-21 and 2012-13, respectively.
Guirassy also became just the fourth Dortmund player to score 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 Celtic).
Owing in large part to Guirassy’s impressive performance, Dortmund ended the match with 3.85 expected goals, while Barcelona could only manage a very pedestrian 0.49 xG.
