Champions League Takeaway: Villa & Dortmund Win But PSG & Barça Progress

Hello Rank Squad! It's time for this week's first Champions League Takeaway - looking back at Tuesday's Quarter Final second legs, where both PSG and Barcelona emerged with qualification intact, but with their reputations bruised and having been handed on-the-night losses by Aston Villa and Borussia Dortmund, who were both excellent. In the absence of Dean, who is flying back to San Diego, Jack is joined by football podcast royalty in Mike Zimmermann - to talk through both of the games and discuss the ramifications in more detail. We start with Aston Villa's impressive 3-2 win over PSG, where the Parisien favourites were given an almighty scare in the second half by Unai Emery's charges, who managed to break free of PSG's impressive counter-attacking hold after the break, going hell for leather and finding themselves some Gigi Donnarumma magic away from taking Luis Enrique's men to extra time. Then in Part Two, we head to the Westfalenstadion, where Dortmund had very little to lose, but managed to expose the Barcelona high line enough to give the Yellow Wall plenty to shout about. Serhou Guirassy's hat-trick had Barça very worried for a time, and although the Catalans progressed, they were subjected to defeat in a single game for the first time in 2025. It's Ranks! And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.