There is another game to be played but on this evidence Barcelona will do so just for the fun of it, and there may be no one having as much fun as they are right now. Their captain, Raphinha, refused to admit as much, flashing a knowing smiling as he said so, but a second Champions League semi-final in a decade is virtually secure already after all three of their fantastic forward line scored en route to a 4-0 victory against Borussia Dortmund at Montjuic. The last was taken by a 17-year-old who may already be considered the best player on the continent. And if he is not, perhaps it’s because a teammate is.
After all, while Lamine Yamal completed a near-perfect Barcelona performance with a gorgeous 14th goal of the season, Pedri continues to glide across a different plane and Robert Lewandowski, 20 years Lamine’s senior, scored his 39th and 40th. At 37, the Pole is the Champions League’s second top-scorer; the man above him is Raphinha, who also scored here as Barcelona reached 144 goals this season and almost certainly the next round, and perhaps beyond. They will take some stopping, that’s for sure.
Dortmund couldn’t do it. Bayern Munich or Inter should prove a sterner test than Niko Kovac’s side, who only momentarily got close on a night that began with Barcelona in control and ended that way too. Lamine Yamal drew the first of five saves from Gregor Kobel and then bamboozled Ramy Bensebaini before bending past the post before Raphinha teed up Lewandowski. Six minutes in and it was already Barcelona’s third sight of goal. Dortmund were being asphyxiated, shown space beyond a daringly high back line but denied time or room to reach it.
Pedri and Frenkie de Jong dominated. Fermín López impressed. Raphinha never stopped running, although his best move was more about subtlety than speed, disappearing behind the goal and reappearing again at the other post, almost catching Dortmund with a sneaky short corner. That didn’t come off, but the next set play did, giving Barcelona the lead.
Karim Adeyemi caught Jules Koundé’s hair and from the clipped free-kick, Iñigo Martínez headed down. Pau Cubarsi, Barcelona’s extraordinary 18-year-old, turned it goalwards. It was going in anyway but, sliding in, Raphinha got the final touch on the line – which led to a VAR wait. “I was worried: I said sorry to Pau,” he admitted but to his relief he wasn’t offside and his team had a lead that might have been doubled when Lamine Yamal failed to find him sprinting clear soon after.
The game was shifting a little, though, Dortmund finding a way through that first wave to threaten. Koundé had to block Serhou Guirassy, who then had an extraordinary chance only to miss Carney Chukwuemeka’s pass entirely and fall over by the penalty spot. Already on the floor, Wojciech Szczesny watched in happy disbelief as the ball dropped into his hands.
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The next time Dortmund broke, the referee Espen Eskas accidentally stopped them, but they kept flowing through. Twice Chukwuemeka had shots blocked, Szczesny saved from Jamie Gittens, and a fantastic ball from Adeyemi just evaded Guirassy. The Guinean then smashed into the side netting just before half-time.
Barcelona went down the tunnel thankful to still have the lead then came back out and doubled it, any fear swiftly forgotten. Pedri spread another expertly weighted ball wide and what came next was like something from the volleyball court: three men, three touches, a flawless sequence. Up, across and down. Lamine Yamal’s perfect, almost gentle looping ball reached Raphinha at the far side of the net and the Brazilian provided the set. Leaping, virtually on the line, he headed back across, over and past the man protecting the net, and there was Lewandowski to finish the move.
Dortmund were done – and the third followed fast if not immediately. By the time Fermín and Lamine Yamal set up Lewandowski, it was their fourth chance in as many minutes and Fermín had hit post and bar. Those came on 62min and 64min. Between them, Kobel denied Lewandowski. Now he could not, the ball squeezing under his body. It was another superb goal, a move that began inside Barcelona’s area, executed with speed and precision.
There would be more, too, Raphinha sprinting free and bending into Lamine Yamal’s path. He controlled and guided in a toe-poke as if he was still on the playground and it was easy. Which not so long ago he was and which, in the end, it had been.
• This article was amended on 10 April 2025 to say that Barcelona would face Bayern Munich or Inter in the semi-finals. An earlier version said it would be Paris St-Germain or Aston Villa.
