Now for the encore Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.
Two teams which produced a 5-4 instant classic last week will take center stage on Wednesday for the second act of their Champions League semifinal.
The return game in Munich surely cannot reach the same height of drama as the waves of finessed attacks — and overwhelmed defenses — reached in Paris.
Still, coaches Luis Enrique and Vincent Kompany will aim for the stars.
“More, even more,” Kompany said in Paris when asked about his main message to Bayern’s players for the decisive second leg.
Arsenal hosts Atletico Madrid on Tuesday with the score 1-1.
The rewards for a semifinal victory are a place in the final on May 30 at the Puskas Arena in Budapest.
Stellar semifinals
Champions League semifinals are often more memorable than the title matches.
One year ago, an exciting Inter Milan-Barcelona contest was widely praised like the PSG-Bayern opener has been. A 3-3 first leg in Barcelona was just an appetizer for Inter’s roller coaster 4-3 win in extra time at San Siro.
In 2022, Real Madrid somehow rallied in stoppage time of the second leg to deny Manchester City victory. Madrid won 3-1 in extra time. The wild first leg went 4-3 to City in Manchester.
A vintage knockout phase in 2019 was capped by astonishing comebacks on back-to-back nights in the semifinal second legs by Liverpool against Barcelona and Tottenham at Ajax.
It is perhaps eight years since a truly compelling back-and-forth final, when substitute Gareth Bale’s goals — the first an iconic bicycle kick — lifted Madrid over Liverpool 3-1 in Kyiv.
While PSG excelled in the final last year, the 5-0 rout of Inter was never competitive.
Arena of entertainers
Munich was the scene of PSG’s finest game last season against Inter and fulfilled its Qatari owners’ quest to become European champion for the first time.
The Allianz Arena is also where six-time champion Bayern won all six home games in the Champions League this season, scoring 20 goals including four past Real Madrid in a quarterfinals second-leg thriller three weeks ago.
Munich is the only candidate to host the Champions League final again in 2028. UEFA should confirm that decision in September.
Atletico in England
Coach Diego Simeone takes his Atletico team to north London for a third game this season. Third time lucky?
Atletico lost at Arsenal 4-0 in a league-phase game in October and survived a 3-2 loss at Tottenham in the second leg of the round of 16 that easily could have been a bigger margin. Atletico also started this Champions League campaign in England in September — and lost at Liverpool 3-2.
It all adds up to five games lost by Atletico in its 15-game Champions League campaign so far, while Arsenal has the last remaining unbeaten record.
Neither team has been European champion. It’s 10 years since Atletico played in the last of its three finals, losing to Real Madrid, and 20 years since Arsenal lost its only final, against Barcelona.
Penalty debates
All four semifinalists were awarded, and scored, a penalty kick last week. A fifth was awarded to Arsenal but then overturned after the referee was sent to his pitchside monitor to review replays.
Since the Video Assistant Referee system made its World Cup debut in 2018 the trend in top-tier games has been to award ever more spot kicks.
None of the five decisions last week was universally praised, and the two handball incidents showed how UEFA’s view differs to many coaches, players and fans.
UEFA director of refereeing Roberto Rosetti has previously said “we don’t like soft penalties” and cautioned against “microscopic VAR interventions” — which seemed to be happening last week.
For each handball, the ball first deflected from the body of, respectively, Bayern’s Alphonso Davies and Arsenal’s Ben White before contacting an arm which was not held tight to the side of their bodies. That is typically not a penalty in the English Premier League but almost certainly is in UEFA competitions.
Rosetti plans to meet soon with refereeing officials from Europe’s main leagues to seek more clarity and consistency next season.
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