In the end, it was comfortable enough for Barcelona, despite Serhou Guirassy’s hat-trick. They were unable to hold the ball and command through possession as they might have liked but they always had clear water. There were spells, though, when they were distinctly uneasy and, but for an own goal that came at just the right time for them, this might have been a very awkward evening.
“I had a feeling something like that would happen today because I know the stadium well,” said the Barça manager, Hansi Flick, once of Bayern. “Things didn’t go too well for us, but Dortmund played very well. The things we played out weren’t what we normally do.” It was a tie, though, that raised doubts about Barcelona as potential champions. There is much to admire about Flick’s Spanish league leaders but theirs is a high-risk game and more precise opponents than Dortmund might have exposed them.
Barcelona’s 4-0 home win last week had in effect settled the tie. The result was that the buildup was notably convivial. As blue and garnet mingled with yellow and black outside the various pizzerias and pubs on a humid spring afternoon in the Alter Markt, there was a disorienting sense of wandering through the idealised world of an advert.
If there was jeopardy for Barcelona it was only in conceding early – which they did. Twice in the past eight years they’ve squandered three-goal first-leg leads, to Roma and Liverpool. There were past traumas there for Dortmund to awake before the fury of the Yellow Wall. The 4-3-3 of last week was gone and its place Niko Kovac preferred a 3-4-2-1. The extra bodies in the middle allowed them to pressure Barcelona much more quickly and higher up the pitch than a week ago, and Flick’s side did not respond well.
The pace of Karim Adeyemi in an inside-left position caused problems and had created a couple of half-chances even before he laid in Pascal Gross, who was tripped by Wojciech Szczesny for a ninth-minute penalty. Guirassy converted. At that point, Barça were unexpectedly ragged, rattled by Dortmund’s intensity and an increasingly raucous atmosphere. The home side had five efforts on target within the opening 20 minutes. Flick’s decision to rest Pedri, the player who above all could perhaps offer control of possession, began to look an unwise gamble; by the time he came on after 59 minutes, the hectic tone had been set.
The danger for Dortmund, and the hope for Barça, was that the home side would blow themselves out and, after Maximilian Beier had headed a Gross free-kick straight at Szczesny on the half hour, that was what happened. Without ever looking entirely assured, Barca seemed to have a measure of control by half-time.
But the second half began with another Dortmund surge and a goal within four minutes, Guirassy heading his second from close range. Dortmund had hope but within five minutes it was gone, Fermin López’s cross thumped into his own net by Ramy Bensebaini. With that, some of the fire went out of Dortmund, at least until fine work from the substitute Julien Duranville led to Guirassy sweeping in his third with 14 minutes remaining. When Julian Brandt had the ball in the net three minutes later, Barca’s temperament might really have been tested, but he was ruled offside.
Dortmund never quite looked like turning the tie, but they exposed flaws in their opponents. Although it tended to be lost in the 4-0 scoreline, Dortmund had also created chances last week: 13 of them, to go with 18 on Tuesday, which is a major problem for Barça. Like all Flick sides, they play with an extremely high line and that means they are vulnerable; their pressing only has to go fractionally awry for them to be extremely open, particularly to quick direct runners.
That’s why they’ve conceded four this season in games against Osasuna, Benfica and Atlético. Two of those examples have come in the 24-match unbeaten run going back to the beginning of the year on which they came into this game, which says much for the potency of their forward line – but that may not be enough. “There are things we need to correct,” said the defender Ronald Araújo, “but we’re in the semi-finals. I’m happy because at another time, this game would have slipped away from us.”
Whether Inter or Bayern come through Wednesday’s quarter-final, they will look at the way Barça struggled to deal with the press and the swathes of space behind their defensive line, and see opportunity.
