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Hello! We’re sliding into your inbox like Borussia Dortmund into the Champions League semi-finals…
Absolute SCENES for Sabitzer's winner 🔥#UCL pic.twitter.com/2ruzVwKxQm
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 16, 2024
Coming up in The Athletic FC:
- Champions League gravy
- Odegaard, wonderkid made good
- Should EPL penalties mimic the NBA?
- New PSR rules. Improved? Maybe.
The Champions League Delivers 🔥
Six games, 29 goals and more to come
Correct us if we’re wrong but we’re rating this season’s Champions League quarter-finals as the best batch of last-eight ties the competition has ever thrown up. Or thereabouts.
To this point, six legs and 29 goals. But not only that. All four ties have been perfectly matched, something the Champions League isn’t able to say very often.
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Bayern Munich might have tanked in the Bundesliga but they still had the talent to keep Arsenal on their toes. Nothing in this round is a foregone conclusion.
The Champions League has long been Europe’s elite competition but when it follows a predictable plot, it can be a bit like an aloof, processional boys’ club.
What we’re getting from the last eight this time is football you don’t want to miss. More of the same, please.
Away goals (don’t) rule
Up until 2021-22, the away goals rule was a fundamental part of the Champions League knockout stages. If a tie finished level after two legs, it went the way of whichever side had scored more goals away from home.
Not everyone was happy when UEFA binned that policy but Tuesday’s drama — Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain tearing into each other, Borussia Dortmund and Atletico Madrid doing the same — was vindication of a change of tack.
In years gone by, Barca could have taken a much more conservative approach to the second leg against PSG. With half an hour to go in Dortmund, Atletico would have been going through despite the tie being level at 3-3.
There’s no denying that UEFA ending the away goals rule has removed some of the psychology it created. But I can’t help feeling the competition is better for it.
Mbappe gives Barca a Real sign of things to come
Look, Barca know Kylian Mbappe. Obviously. But the sight of him leading the charge for the tearaway goal that sealed PSG’s win in Catalonia is something they better get used to.
All things being equal, it won’t be long before he’s doing the same in Real Madrid colours.
Barca’s season is as good as over. An early red card did for them. PSG and their manager Luis Enrique are on for a treble and Mbappe makes them a danger in the semi-finals. More so than Dortmund.
That said, I still think this season’s winner is coming from Wednesday’s ties. Manchester City against Real Madrid is the land of the heavyweights.
The Wonderkid Curse
It’s a bit rich asking Martin Odegaard to step up because he’s been fabulous for Arsenal, but they blinked at the Emirates and players like Odegaard have little choice but to find another gear.
I’ve no horse in this race but Odegaard as a Premier League champion would be a nice story. He’s the wonderkid who survived rough seas, going from must-have-schoolboy status when he joined Real Madrid in 2015 to where-are-they-now? territory as he stagnated in Spain.
The same has happened to other exceptional teenagers too. Remember Renato Sanches? A multi-million-pound signing for Bayern Munich who ended up lost at Swansea City, passing to an advertising board instead of a team-mate?
Or Alen Halilovic, ‘the Croatian Messi’, who got a chance at Barcelona but couldn’t make the grade?
Odegaard was 22 when he found his calling at Arsenal. It’s a fine lesson for aspiring footballers — that growing up is not the same as being a busted flush.
EPL Meets NBA? 🤝
Should soccer adopt a key basketball rule?
The more footage emerged of the squabbling over Chelsea’s penalty on Monday night, the more ridiculous it became — not least because Everton were already toast by the time it was awarded.
Mauricio Pochettino has threatened to bomb Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke out of Stamford Bridge if they carry on like that again. A slightly idle threat, perhaps, but in his shoes you’d have read the riot act too.
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The school-yard antics got Nick Miller thinking about penalty takers — and the fact that in basketball, the responsibility for taking a free throw always falls to the player who is fouled.
There’s no chance of football mimicking the NBA, not least because there are plenty of sports where penalty specialists are freely designated.
But the randomness would a) prevent toys-out-the-pram scenarios like Monday’s and b) raise the banter stakes significantly. Tempting.
PSR Rethink 💰
How will financial rule changes affect clubs?
If there was any temptation on your part to spend time studying the minutiae of the Premier League’s existing profit and sustainability rules (PSR), a word of warning — don’t.
As a result of a vote among clubs last week, they’re about to change. Again. Everyone is unhappy with the current framework. The points deductions imposed on Everton and Nottingham Forest are a mess. A rethink was inevitable.
So, from the start of the 2025-26 Premier League season:
- Clubs who qualify for Europe can spend 70 per cent of turnover on wages, transfers and agents’ fees. For clubs not in Europe, the limit rises to 80 per cent.
- This replaces the acceptable losses model (£105m over three years under current rules).
Using the new squad-cost rules to look at last season, it demonstrates compliance will not be straightforward. Calculations suggest almost half of the Premier League might have encountered issues.
Points deductions remain for significant breaches.
The natural response to these proposals: don’t they favour the biggest clubs, or those with the highest revenue? I hear you. Get ready for this race to intensify.
Portsmouth, Remember Them? 🏆
The fall and rise of former FA Cup winners
Certain clubs have chaos down to a fine art. Portsmouth are one of them.
They won the FA Cup in 2008 and are an ex-Premier League side but, until yesterday, they had been out of England’s top two divisions for 12 long years.
Promotion means they’re back in the Championship. It’s been white-knuckle stuff. Kudos to their coach, who saw a banner flying overhead at his first game in charge: ‘No ambition — no plan.’
Catch A Match (Times ET / UK)
Manchester City versus Real Madrid is becoming the rivalry that never disappoints. Game on at the Etihad on Wednesday. Guillermo Rai reckons meetings with City matter more to Real these days than El Clasico against Barcelona.
Bayern Munich against Arsenal is set up beautifully too, and they’ve produced some classics over the years. Our writers went digging around for other historical match-ups which always delivered. Say hello to The Battle of the Buffet.
Man City vs Real Madrid (3pm/8pm)
Second leg (aggregate 3-3).
Paramount+, TNT Sports 1.
Bayern Munich vs Arsenal (3pm/8pm)
Second leg (aggregate 2-2).
Paramount+, TNT Sports 2.
(Top photo: Xavier Laine/Getty Images)
