Ultimate Guide to Champions League Quarter-Finals, 2nd Leg: Barca, PSG to Lose?
Great goals, remarkable mistakes, bizarre red cards and huge shocks. The first legs of the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals seemingly had it all, so it is good news for us all that the second legs are just around the corner.
All four ties are pretty finely poised as the road to Milan enters the final straight, but how will the fixtures shape up?
Here’s the ultimate guide.
TOP NEWS
Madrid Fines Players $590K 😲
'Mbappé Out' Petition Gaining Steam 😳
Star-Studded World Cup Ad 🤩
Tuesday, April 12
Manchester City (2) vs. Paris Saint-Germain (2), Etihad Stadium, Manchester, 7.45 p.m. BST / 2.45 p.m. ET
For a team with their obvious talents, there was a strange sense Manchester City were being written off ahead of their first-leg trip to Paris. But in the end, they only had themselves to blame for failing to bring home a victory.
Fernando's bizarre dawdling gifted Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paris Saint-Germain an equaliser at a time when City were looking to build on Kevin De Bruyne’s opener, but Fernandinho’s late equaliser—a crucial second away goal—has tipped this tie slightly in their favour.
The pre-match favouring of PSG was largely based on how they have romped to the Ligue 1 title, but there is little doubt that City are the best team they’ve faced since November, and as the club’s first European semi-final since the 1969/70 European Cup Winners’ Cup comes into view, this second leg is all about them.
Do they stand up and embrace the possibility of becoming part of the European elite, or do they sink into “typical City” mode, succumbing to PSG’s obvious attacking power?
The visitors are likely to score at some point, but without the suspended David Luiz and Blaise Matuidi, they could find themselves vulnerable to a City side that will likely feature Yaya Toure in the starting lineup after he missed the first leg.
And with De Bruyne and Saturday's match-winner Samir Nasri likely to provide attacking support for Sergio Aguero, a fourth successive quarter-final exit for PSG could be on the cards.
Prediction: Manchester City 2-1 Paris Saint-Germain (Manchester City win 4-3 on aggregate)
Real Madrid (0) vs. Wolfsburg (2), Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid, 7.45 p.m. BST / 2.45 p.m. ET
What was supposed to be a breeze for Real Madrid ended up going badly wrong in the first leg in Germany, where Ricardo Rodriguez’s penalty and a Maximilian Arnold strike gave Wolfsburg a surprising supremacy.
Without the safety blanket of an away goal, the task of reaching a sixth successive Champions League semi-final has grown all the more difficult for Zinedine Zidane’s side, but they can at least point to 10 results from their last 13 home matches that would take this game to at least extra time, including Saturday’s 4-0 win over Eibar.
Marcelo, Toni Kroos and Gareth Bale were all rested for that game—in which Real scored all four goals in the first 39 minutes—and Zidane will send out his side to attack from the off on an evening when the home crowd will be baying for blood.
Real’s potential success is likely to depend on whether they can grab an early goal, with their ability to overwhelm the Bundesliga’s eighth-placed team undoubted.
On what could turn into their greatest night, Wolfsburg are not going to want to leave their own half as they bid to block out their star-studded opponents, but with Real having progressed on two of the three occasions they’ve faced a 2-0 first-leg away deficit before, the smart money might be on three becoming four.
Cristiano Ronaldo—the scorer of a record 90 Champions League goals—will be eyeing another night to add to his legacy, and with Dieter Hecking’s side having never faced this sort of task before, a brave run might just be coming to an end.
Prediction: Real Madrid 4-0 Wolfsburg (Real Madrid win 4-2 on aggregate)
Wednesday, April 13
Atletico Madrid (1) vs. Barcelona (2), Vicente Calderon, Madrid, 7.45 p.m. BST / 2.45 p.m. ET
All of a sudden, Barcelona’s halo is slipping a little. The realisation that a 2-1 first-leg home victory leaves any tie at 50-50 has become stark.
Back-to-back Primera Division defeats for the Catalans have let Atletico Madrid back into the race for domestic glory, and a Champions League loss to Diego Simeone’s men would only exacerbate a sense of vulnerability for a club that is only ever a bad week away from a crisis.
Fernando Torres’ red card at the Camp Nou on Tuesday—a record 30th experienced by an opponent against Barcelona in European competition, per Vicki Hodges of the Telegraph—allowed the hosts back into a tie that had threatened to get away from them. Luis Suarez’s goals were surely not the most important scored by an ex-Liverpool forward on the night, however.
Torres’ well-taken away strike has given Simeone something to build on, and if his side were to score the first goal in this second leg, then Luis Enrique could see his dreams of a second successive treble come tumbling down around him.
Atletico have lost just one of their last 18 home matches—a shadow side’s defeat to Celta Vigo in the Copa del Rey—and there will be a real sense that they are playing Barca at just the right time, with a perceived sense of injustice at the outcome of the first leg driving them on.
Neither Lionel Messi nor Neymar is in the greatest of form, and with the Champions League proving notoriously difficult to retain, this could just be where they bow out this year.
Prediction: Atletico Madrid 1-0 Barcelona (Atletico Madrid win on away goals)
Benfica (0) vs. Bayern Munich (1), Estadio da Luz, Lisbon, 7.45 p.m. BST / 2.45 p.m. ET
Arturo Vidal scored within two minutes of the first leg of this tie at the Allianz Arena, and then everyone sat back and waited for more goals which never came.
Bayern Munich’s one-goal lead is somewhat vulnerable as they head to Lisbon, but a stubborn and determined Benfica have to put the emphasis on something they don’t normally do in this competition: attack.
Pep Guardiola might be in the process of boxing up his belongings and overnighting them to Manchester, England, but he’ll be viewing this as the perfect chance to keep his opponents at arm’s length and finish off a contest in which it has always looked as though the favourites and this season’s Champions League top scorers (with 26) would progress.
Indeed, losing a Champions League quarter-final is alien to the Catalan, with progression achieved all six times he has reached this stage before.
A headline meeting with his future employers Manchester City is perhaps what lies ahead, and as long as Bayern stay focused, Benfica’s record of never having won a quarter-final in this competition in its current guise should stay intact.
In fact, the last two teams to beat them at this stage (Chelsea in 2012 and Barcelona in 2006) went on to lift the trophy.
Prediction: Benfica 1-2 Bayern Munich (Bayern Munich win 3-1 on aggregate)
