Barca survives Dortmund blitz

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

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 on Tuesday, 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 have 12 and 11 Champions League goals, respectively, so far this season. The closest either came to scoring was a tame shot by Raphinha at Dortmund goalkeeper Gregor Kobel.

"We played two games, and it's justified that we're through. I don't want to talk too much about my team, because it wouldn't be fair to Dortmund," said Flick.

"They made our lives very hard, but what was important is we made it to the semifinals."

Top scorer

Guirassy is Dortmund's "life insurance", coach Niko Kovac said, after a game that has further fueled his rapid rise to fame, and has seen him top this season's Champions League top scorer list. "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 through injury.

For a while, though, Guirassy made the impossible seem possible.

Guirassy 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. Fermin Lopez's low cross fired in off Bensebaini's ankle — a double disappointment for Dortmund because the defender been crucial in the comeback attempt, assisting Guirassy's second goal just five minutes earlier.

Guirassy pounced on Ronald Araujo's defensive error to complete his hat-trick with a powerful closerange shot in the 76th, in the process becoming the Champions League's top goal scorer so far this season with 13.

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.

Streaks broken

Barcelona will face 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 Tuesday's other game, PSG reached the semifinals with a 5-4 aggregate win over Aston Villa, despite losing the second leg 3-2.

As well as being Barcelona's first loss in all competitions since a 2-1 defeat to Atletico Madrid on Dec 21, it was Barcelona's first Champions League loss since September, and only the seventh loss in Flick's 50 games in charge. The German coach had won all seven of his previous games against Dortmund during his time in charge of Barcelona and Bayern.

Barcelona midfielder Lopez said the experience would make the Catalan club stronger.

"Dortmund have a really good team, you saw that today. Last week we made them suffer at our place. Today we suffered here, but in the end we were able to limit the damage," said the 21-year-old.

"We're now in the semifinals and can draw a lot of strength from this game today because it was a big task."

The defeat did not shake Flick, who said he had "full trust that we'll get back on track".

"Now is the time to celebrate what we've achieved, then we can get back to analyzing what's ahead of us," added the German.

For Dortmund, it might be a while until the Champions League anthem plays at its stadium again.

Last year's runner-up is currently sitting eighth in the Bundesliga with five games remaining, six points adrift of the four Champions League qualifying places.

Agencies