Barca survives Dortmund blitz

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