Barcelona advances to semifinals despite first loss of the year

Barcelona’s Ronald Araujo, right, duels for the ball with Dortmund’s Karim Adeyemi

Dortmund 3 (3), Barcelona 1 (5)

Serhou Guirassy and Borussia Dortmund did what no else has been able to in 2025 — they beat Barcelona. It still wasn’t enough to reach the Champions League semifinals.

Guirassy scored a hat trick and still ended up on the losing side as Dortmund’s 3-1 win over Barcelona — the Spanish club’s first defeat of any sort since December — wasn’t enough to prevent a 5-3 aggregate loss.

After being swept aside 4-0 in the first leg of the quarterfinal, Dortmund had nothing to lose yesterday [Macau time] and attacked Barcelona from the start, leaving the visitors off-balance.

Barcelona coach Hansi Flick, who has plenty of experience of facing — and beating — Dortmund from his time in the German league, said the passionate home crowd meant he’d expected a tough second leg despite his team’s four-goal lead.

“I had a little bit of a feeling that something like this was coming,” Flick told broadcaster Amazon Prime. “Today you have to say congratulations to Dortmund, they played a very good game, and congratulations to my team, they’re in the semifinals.”

It was an unusually quiet game for Barcelona’s prolific forwards Raphinha and Robert Lewandowski, who had 12 and 11 Champions League goals respectively this season. The closest either came to scoring was a tame shot by Raphinha at Dortmund goalkeeper Gregor Kobel.

Guirassy is Dortmund’s “life insurance,” coach Niko Kovac said after a game that continued his rapid rise to fame and left him top of the Champions League scoring lists this season. “Serhou just needs the support of his teammates, like every striker does, and he got that today.”

Dortmund had arguably lost the quarterfinal in the first leg, and in addition had captain Emre Can and midfielder Carney Chukwuemeka ruled out with injuries earlier in the day.

For a while, Guirassy made the impossible seem possible.

Guirassy had missed chances in the first leg and spurned a couple more early in Tuesday’s game but made no mistake from the penalty spot in the 11th minute after Barcelona goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny collided with Pascal Gross.

Guirassy’s header made it 2-0 in the 49th minute before an own goal by Ramy Bensebaini made Dortmund’s task even harder. Fermín López’s low cross that in off Bensebaini’s ankle — a double disappointment for Dortmund because the defender been crucial in the comeback attempt, assisting Guirassy’s second goal shortly before.

Guirassy seized on Ronald Araujo’s defensive error to complete his hat trick with a powerful close-range shot in the 76th, in the process becoming the Champions League’s top scorer this season on 13 goals.

It gave Dortmund fresh hope of completing what would have been one of the all-time great Champions League comebacks — one to rival Barcelona’s against Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 — but Barcelona held on to progress.

Barcelona faces either Inter Milan or Bayern Munich in the semifinals, the first time it’s reached the last four of the Champions League since the 2018-19 season. In yesterday’s other game, PSG reached the semifinals with a 5-4 aggregate win over Aston Villa despite losing the second leg 3-2. MDT/AP