The Champions League quarterfinals are set, in the most dramatic fashion possible. Did Julian Alvarez definitely touch that ball twice? We might never learn the answer to that but there have been a fair few things we have learned.
1. We’ve been sleeping on Bayern
On behalf of the CBS Sports writing staff, humblest apologies to Bayern Munich. There were five round of 16 ties in which our picks were unanimous, four relative gimmes that proved to be exactly that, and then, erm, yeah, the Bundesliga leaders being sent packing by Bayer Leverkusen. Still, at least some of our so-called experts haven’t seen their champion go packing in the round of 16 though.
Here’s the crux though — at the time, picking Leverkusen seemed by far the sanest choice. Xabi Alonso had a hold of Bayern Munich and only a few weeks earlier his side had been as dominant in a 0-0 draw as one could wish to be. As for the Bavarians? Yeah, wasn’t feeling that really. They’d barely crept past Celtic and had been well beaten by Barcelona and Aston Villa in the group stage and beaten up the schlubs. Almost every other contender had an elite coach in the dugout, these guys have one who took Burnley out of and back into the Championship. That defense has looked like it’s had a rick in it for years. Harry Kane’s too slow for the Champions League. As a collective, this team has just been at it too long to be the new exciting thing.
And yet this is also a team that has been absolutely smoking the Bundesliga, their per game expected goal (xG) difference of 1.79 the best in Europe’s top five divisions since the Paris Saint-Germain side of 2019-20 and the best in its top four since those metrics were first tracked in 2016-17. Those metrics translate to the Champions League too. Only PSG have a better non-penalty xG difference and on a per-game basis, those two are a long way clear of the other teams left in the competition.
Kane might not have what little explosiveness he had in his mid-20s but Bayern have constructed a squad around him that masks his athleticism, that can either feast on the chances he creates or pick him out when he does arrive. Michael Olise is a star and it perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise that at the other end Vincent Kompany has got consistently impressive performances out of Dayot Upamecano, a defense that gives up the fewest shots per game in the competition further aided by restoring Joshua Kimmich to a midfield that absolutely dominates the possession game. It turns out that not picking a fight with your senior players and superiors can be a rather effective form of management.
Their path back to a final on home turf looks as tough as anyone’s, starting with the bust-up outside the retirement village that is their quarterfinal against Inter. Then again these old guys have got tricks in their bag that the young bucks couldn’t even imagine. It’s time ti take Bayern seriously.
2. There are no easy answers for PSG’s attack
A question for you — What position did Khvicha Kvaratskhelia play in the first leg against Liverpool? Opta says he started the game as a right winger and that rather looked like where he started, but by the end of the game, the Georgian was operating more as a center forward. Most of his shots, by the way, came from that sort of inside left channel you’d expect him to be driving into if you’d seen his time at Napoli.
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Then in the second leg, Kvaratskhelia ends up not just with a touch map more in keeping with an orthodox winger but an up and down flank, cover for your fullback winger at that. Nearly 40 percent of his touches coming in his own half? That’s not like any PSG forward I used to know.
Similar patterns repeat themselves if you look at the heatmaps of Ousmane Dembele and Bradley Barcola, to say nothing of the go-anywhere-and-shoot-from-there tyro that was Desire Doue. There is a fluidity to this PSG frontline that speaks in glowing terms both to the talent of these players and the coaching of Luis Enrique, who has stitched together an attack from new arrival Kvaratskhelia and newfound center forward Dembele in an instant.
In the frontline and beyond, this is a team full of remarkably intelligent players. Just take note of how PSG are manipulating Liverpool, who in this instance were pressing them with some intensity, in the build-up to their goal. Kvaratskhelia drops deep to give Nuno Mendes the easier pass, and within an instant Vitinha is occupying the space his winger has vacated, dragging Dominik Szoboszlai with him. Ibrahima Konate has to be alive to that threat on his outside but that means ceding the center so that Dembele can drop deep, turn and run.
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From there on out it is a matter of execution, and on current form, there are few if any better at executing than PSG. More than once in the second leg Dembele found joy operating out of that false nine position, one which came open because the likes of Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister were pushing high as Liverpool tried to hem PSG in with their press. That was perhaps the natural adjustment to make from a trying first leg, but when your opponent is as good as this, Slot must have known it would create other problems for him.
Perhaps Unai Emery’s response will be to low-block his way through his visit to the Parc des Princes. Just wait for Dembele to overload on the flanks. Try to outpossess them and you’ll find that this PSG attack does not press with the diffidence of its predecessors. Over three and a half hours Liverpool tried it all, impressive as they were, their footholds in the contest were fleeting. There is no obvious answer, it would seem, for what to do against this team.
3. Arsenal might just be a Saka away
Arsenal probably won’t win the Champions League for two simple reasons: they have no natural center forward and their best attacker is unlikely to hit the ground running when he returns from a major hamstring injury that will have sidelined him for more than three months. Let us suppose, however, that Bukayo Saka were to return at the level of a player who still ranks in the top five across Europe’s top five leagues for expected possession value from passing having missed half this season’s league minutes.
Suddenly Arsenal might check all the boxes required of champions. Game breaking forward? Got. Strength in depth? Except for that pesky center forward spot, it’s not looking too bad, particularly after a sprightly display from Oleksandr Zinchenko in central midfield. The defense? That’s where things are looking really good.
Ben White returned to the starting XI and immediately had you wondering if Arsenal could get the same swift adaptation from Saka. Like Jurrien Timber, White can lock down a flank. What he can also do is drive up it, getting to the byline and pushing beyond his man, as typified in one flashy play early in the second half at the Emirates. With William Saliba rested the Gunners rearguard was not quite as parsimonious as it has been in most of the last nine games. Ivan Perisic and Couhaib Driouech added 40 percent to the goals against tally for the Gunners this season but it took quite outstanding finishes to beat David Raya. One thing we know about PSV, however, is that they will attack to a fault. That’s how they got into their first leg mess. Quite frequently when they did they flew into a brick wall shaped like Gabriel.
Beyond Saliba and Gabriel, Arsenal can construct their defense as befits the occasion. Riccardo Calafiori can enter the fray when a more front-footed/chaotic option is required. A quartet of White, Saliba, Gabriel and Timber could lock out a fair few attacks without breaking sweat.
It is factors like that that mean that even as Arsenal breezed into the last eight, you sensed that this competition sits on a knife edge for them. The defense is good enough to keep them in any tie but do they have what is needed to win it at the other end? They maybe can cobble together good enough center forward play from Leandro Trossard or Mikel Merino if only the rest of the attack is ready to go come their trip to Madrid. All they need is for Saka to return swiftly and immediately be one of the best forwards in the world, then they’re right in this. Is that too much to ask?
4. Barcelona have ways to win
Negotiating their round of 16 tie without anything like the drama of their last encounter with Benfica, Barcelona proved themselves to be as dangerous as any team in the field when they played their game. Only four sides left in the field are allowing more passes per defensive action with Pedri in particular excelling at being the guy who gets the ball high up — only two players have more recoveries in the final third — and from there he gets the ball to Raphinha and Lamine Yamal with zip and purpose. You know what happens then.
The fear for Barcelona has been such an aggressive approach, one where the double pivot are advanced extremely high to win the ball, runs the risk of being undone by the more direct play that brought Benfica such joy in their 5-4 defeat a few months back. That might still be the case but at least this tie proved there are other ways for Hansi Flick’s side to get the job done. In the first leg, they looked reasonably effective when dropping deep and protecting their goal at a man down, giving up a lot of shots but only a smattering around the 50th minute that were from really prime position.
Even more impressively was how Barcelona managed their two-goal advantage in the second half of the second leg. Benfica seemed intent on turning the game back into a basketball game and there was more than one occasion where the hosts seemed inclined to give them what they wanted. A few more goals, there’d be a bit of fun in that surely? Indeed but surely greater risk for the Catalans too. Instead, they settled into the familiar groove of pre-Flick possession ball, their direct speed the lowest it has been in the second half of any Champions League game this season. Such caution and control might serve them well in the challenges ahead.
5. Slot has no case to bemoan the draw
It is perhaps natural, when as much broke against you as seemed to for Liverpool on Tuesday night, to believe that you have been done over by forces outside your control as Arne Slot seemed to suggest after his side’s exit at the hands of PSG. In particular, his beef was with a league phase that he felt had not adequately rewarded his table toppers.
“It feels a bit unfair to go out in this round already — to win the group and then play a team as strong as PSG,” said Slot. “It is something to take into consideration, the worth of finishing first if you face PSG in the next round. We were so unlucky to play PSG and we could have been in the other half of the draw.”
To which one might reasonably respond that there are only so many accommodations UEFA can afford to the best-performing teams from the league phase. While PSG had work to do in February to even get to Anfield, Liverpool were able to catch up on their domestic fixtures, building such an advantage that in retrospect it may have been wise to rest a few starters at the weekend with an eye on Tuesday and then Sunday’s EFL Cup Final.
Even Slot himself acknowledged some of the flaws in his thinking. It was never a given that PSG would have ended up on Liverpool’s side of the bracket and if anyone knows anything about the luck of the Champions League draw it is the Parisians, who got round of 16 ties against Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich under UEFA’s ancien régime. Sometimes good teams will have the misfortune of drawing each other, on other occasions a super team will emerge from what looked like ashes early in the competition.
Anyway, it is not as if there was nothing Liverpool could have done to avert a draw with one of the favorites. It was quite apparent ahead of the final round of league fixtures that a PSV win would put a ceiling on how high Paris Saint-Germain could rise and yet Slot (understandably) opted to leave his best and brightest at home. Had he not done so, it could have been his team smashing seven past PSV as Arsenal or Inter labored against Dembele et al.
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