UEFA Champions League
LIVE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: BARCELONA 2-8 BAYERN MUNICH; 1st TIME BARCA CONCEDE 8 IN EUROPE!
Setien’s last game in charge of Barcelona?
89MINS: Gooooal!
Gooooal!
Coutinho (Bayern) scores
Coutinho (Bayern) scores! Barcelona 2-7 Bayern Munich
GOAL – Barcelona 2-6 Bayern Munich
Robert Lewandowski
Barcelona have conceded six goals in a European match for the first time since losing 5-4 to Levski Sofia in March 1976 in the UEFA Cup. Drubbing.
63MINS: GOAL – Barcelona 2-5 Bayern Munich
GOAL! Barcelona 2-5 BAYERN MUNICH
Magic from Alphonso Davies, what a star this lad is! On the wing from a standing start, he skips past Nelson Semedo along the byline, and also sees off the challenge from Gerard Pique before laying the ball back for Josh Kimmich to tap home. The celebrations though are with the Canadian who let’s face it did 90 per cent of the work.
58mins: Gooooaaal!!!!! Barcelona fighting back through Luiz Suarez
Barcelona 2-4 Bayern
53 mins
DISALLOWED GOAL
Barcelona 1-4 Bayern Munich
Striker Robert Lewandowski taps in from Thomas Muller’s pull-back, but the midfielder was miles offside. The assistant waited for the play to be… played out.
There are howls and jeers from the piped crowd
Meanwhile Luis Suarez goes into the book for clipping Thiago.
46 MINS: Substitution. Griezmann (in) – Sergi Roberto (out) (Barcelona)
Thomas Müller has now scored 23 goals in the Champions League knockout stages, the third-most of any player behind Cristiano Ronaldo (67) and Lionel Messi (47). Stage.
2nd Half resumes
Can Barcelona turn this game around?
They will need a miracle to achieve that. This is the first time in the club’s history that Barcelona concedes four goals in first half.
They only need three goals to get back on level terms, but the way they are defending they are probably going to need seven goals in this next 45 minutes.
HALF-TIME
Barcelona 1-4 Bayern Munich
Bayern Munich are too slick, too powerful, too clever, too efficient.
31MINS GOOOOALL!!!!!! Thomas Muller.
29MINS: Gooooal! Gnabry (Bayern) scores!
22MINS: GOAAAL : Perišić (Bayern) scores!
13min: The end-to-end action continues as Robert Lewandowski has a shot that falls off target. Maybe he should take shooting tips from Muller, who showed how it was done earlier.
BAYERN 1-1 BARCELONA
Match summary
- Alaba slices own goal to level scores
- Müller hits opener after team move
- Boateng, Neuer deny Luis Suárez
- Winners vs Man. City/Lyon in semi-finals
GOAL! BARCELONA 1-1 Bayern Munich: David Alaba scores an own goal!
GOAL! Barcelona 0-1 BAYERN MUNICH
3min: Barcelona are in an unusual set-up of just sitting off their opponents in this early stage but they create the first dangerous moment of the tie.
Lionel Messi finds space to run into on the right but his ball into the centre is crucially cleared by Jerome Boateng with Luis Suarez ready to convert.
Tonight’s referee Damir Skomina was in charge of the second leg in 2013 when Bayern won 3-0 at Barcelona to reach the final.Update;
· Bayern name unchanged starting XI
· Busquets and Vidal in for Barcelona
· Rakitić, Griezmann drop to bench
· Winners vs Man. City/Lyon in semi-finals
Kick off! The match is under way. It’s Barcelona getting us underway in Lisbon
The players are out on the pitch, which can only mean one thing – it’s official UEFA Champions League anthem time.
Bayern Munich and Barcelona clash in one of the highlight ties of the Champions League quarter-finals as the European giants go head-to-head for a place in the final four.
Bayern Munich’s demolition of Chelsea in the last-16 makes them slight favourites heading into the tie at Benfica’s Estadio da Luz ground in Lisbon, but Barca can never be written off while they have Lionel Messi in their ranks.
It is potentially the final before the final match as Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona clash in the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League.
· Barcelona starting XI: Ter Stegen, Nelson Semedo, Pique, Lenglet, Jordi Alba, Sergi Roberto, Busquets, de Jong, Vidal, Messi, Suarez
· Bayern Munich starting XI: Neuer, Kimmich, Boateng, Alaba, Davies, Thiago, Goretzka, Gnabry, Muller, Perisic, Lewandowski
BUILD UP TO TITANIC CLASH OF BARCA & BAYERN
- Barcelona and Bayern Munich have both reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the 18th time (in 24 and 23 appearances respectively), more than any other team.
- Barcelona are in the quarter-finals for the 13th consecutive year – that is every season since 2007-08, a record in the history of the competition.
- Barcelona have lost more Champions League games against Bayern than any other club, losing five of their eight matches against them (W2 D1).
- Barcelona have lost just two of their last 31 Champions League matches (W19 D10) and are unbeaten in this season’s competition (W5 D3); they are one of only three teams still yet to taste defeat this season, along with opponents Bayern Munich and Manchester City.
- Bayern striker Lewandowski has scored 13 goals in just seven Champions League appearances this season, averaging a goal every 47 minutes – in the history of the European Cup/Champions League, this is the best minutes per goal ratio in a single campaign of players to play at least 500 minutes that season.
UEFA Champions League
LaLiga to have five teams in 2025-26 Champions League

Spain’s LaLiga will be represented by at least five teams in the Champions League next season after Italy’s Lazio were eliminated from the Europa League on Thursday while Athletic Bilbao progressed to the semi-finals.
LaLiga earned the second of two European Performance Spots handed out by UEFA, which go to associations “with the best collective performance by their clubs” in UEFA competitions.
England’s Premier League was the first to secure an extra berth in Europe’s top competition, on top of the four granted to the top four teams in the domestic table.
Villarreal are fifth in the LaLiga standings, with 51 points from 30 matches.
They are three points ahead of sixth-placed Real Betis and eight in front of Celta Vigo and Mallorca, with all three clubs having played one more game than Villarreal.
-Reuters
UEFA Champions League
No complaints from Ancelotti, as Real humbled by Arsenal

Real Madrid’s record-breaking manager Carlo Ancelotti had no complaints after his side’s Champions League reign was ended in emphatic fashion by Arsenal in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Italian Ancelotti won a record-extending fifth Champions League trophy last season as Real beat Borussia Dortmund at Wembley, but his side went down 2-1 at home to Arsenal for a crushing 5-1 aggregate defeat.
“There are two sides to football, the happy part that has happened to us many times and the sad part we have to handle in the same way. It has happened to us fewer times than to other teams, but we have to manage it because it allows us to be better in the next games.”
When Real keeper Thibaut Courtois saved Bukayo Saka’s early penalty and minutes later Real were awarded a spot kick for a push by Declan Rice on Kylian Mbappe, it seemed that the great escape might still be a possibility.
But Real’s penalty was overturned after a lengthy VAR check, and in truth, they never looked remotely threatening as their bid for a 16th European Cup crown ended in feeble fashion.
“To change the dynamic, we needed something positive, like the penalty he whistled and then took off. We needed something to have more confidence, but we were not able to change the dynamic of the first leg,” Ancelotti said.
Despite the defeat, Ancelotti said Real’s season still has plenty of possibilities, not least trying to bridge a four-point gap to La Liga leaders Barcelona.
“Now we are in the fight for La Liga. We have a disadvantage, but we have the Barcelona game, we have the Copa del Rey final, the Club World Cup, and we have to manage this part, which is another part of football that we are not used to,” he said.
“It’s time to hold our heads high and learn from our mistakes. It’s sad today, but I have absolutely no worries about how my players will respond. We’ll fight on, we’ll learn from the experience, and we’ll try to be better for the next match.”
-Reuters
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UEFA Champions League
Arsenal cruise past lacklustre Real Madrid to reach semis

Arsenal snuffed out any chance of a famous Real Madrid comeback to reach the Champions League semi-finals after a 2-1 victory in the Bernabeu Stadium completed a 5-1 aggregate win on Wednesday.
Holders and 15-time winners Real never looked like clawing back a 3-0 deficit from last week’s quarter-final first leg, and when Bukayo Saka scored for the visitors in the 65th minute, their fate was effectively sealed.
Vinicius Junior seized on a rare defensive slip a couple of minutes later to rouse the home crowd, but it proved too little too late as Carlo Ancelotti’s side exited feebly.
Arsenal’s superiority over the two legs was underlined in stoppage time as Gabriel Martinelli burst through to score.
They will face Paris St Germain in their first Champions League semi-final since 2009.
“I think it’s such a special night for this club, it’s a historic night for this club,” said Arsenal’s Declan Rice, whose two sublime free kicks put his side in control last week.
“There was a lot of talk coming in about them coming back from the dead, they’ve done it so many times before. But we had so much belief and confidence from that first leg that we had enough to come here and win the game.”
A cacophony of noise greeted kickoff with the home fans fuelled by the hope of witnessing what would have been one of the greatest Champions League comebacks.
But Real’s knack of extricating themselves from difficult positions in a competition they won six times in the previous 11 seasons deserted them as they were comprehensively outplayed.
“Did we fall short of what we wanted in pure football terms? Perhaps,” Real captain Lucas Vazquez said. “They really are terrifically organised defensively.”
PENALTY MISS
Real needed a storming start, and Mbappe had the ball in the Arsenal net in the opening minutes but was offside when chesting in a Vinicius cross.
Arsenal were in no mood to simply sit and protect their lead, though, and Saka forced a great save from Courtois. They were handed the chance to kill off the tie when Raul Asencio needlessly hauled down Mikel Merino from a corner, and referee Francois Letexier eventually awarded a penalty after checking a pitch-side VAR monitor.
Saka opted for a Panenka-style chipped penalty, and Courtois clawed away the ball.
It looked like a potentially pivotal moment, and when Letexier pointed to the penalty spot at the other end after Kylian Mbappe tumbled under minimal contact from Rice, Arsenal’s night looked like taking a turn for the worse.
After five painstaking minutes, however, Letexier was again invited by VAR to view the monitor and to a chorus of whistles from the home fans, overturned his original decision.
That scare aside, Arsenal coped easily with Real Madrid’s famed frontline who were given little to work with.
Arsenal keeper David Raya was not required to make a save before halftime as Real’s predilection for hopeful crosses into the area proved easy pickings for the visiting defence.
Real’s Mbappe barely had a sniff of a chance as Arsenal showed great control and Saka made up for his first-half miss with a clinical finish after being sent clear by Merino.
William Saliba gifted Real a lifeline when he was caught in possession on the edge of his area, allowing Vinicius to score, but there was never any sense of panic in the visiting ranks.
Martinelli put the icing on the cake in added time, again from a Merino assist, to send Arsenal’s fans into raptures.
-Reuters
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