Monaco beat Dortmund to go through
Rising teenage star Kylian Mbappe and resurgent forward Radamel Falcao scored early goals as free-scoring Monaco beat Borussia Dortmund 3-1 to reach the Champions League semifinals yesterday.
Dortmund trailed 3-2 from the first leg in Germany and conceded twice inside 20 minutes — meaning it needed to score three times to have a chance. Attacking midfielder Marco Reus pulled one back in the 48th minute.
But substitute Valere Germain, just after replacing Mbappe, added the third in the 81st minute to seal a 6-3 victory on aggregate. It was Monaco’s 141st goal of an incredible season that has captured the imagination and made the rest of Europe take notice.
The home leg in Germany was overshadowed by an attack on the Dortmund team bus as it headed to the stadium. Prior to Wednesday’s game, Dortmund’s bus was held for 20 minutes by police at the team hotel. Kickoff was briefly delayed.
Dortmund made the worst possible start to the match, conceding a goal after just three minutes.
Left back Bernard Mendy ran at the heart of Dortmund’s defense and hit a fierce shot that goalkeeper Roman Burki spilled. Mbappe slotted the loose ball into the bottom left corner for his 22nd goal of his breakthrough season. He had scored twice in the first leg.
Falcao’s diving header, the 27th goal of his comeback season, made it 2-0 in the 17th.
Reus pulled one back when he turned in a right-wing cross from substitute Ousmane Dembele to offer some hope, before Germain sprinted through to send Stade Louis II crowd into raptures.
In the night’s other match, Barcelona went out after drawing 0-0 at home to Juventus, which won the first leg 3-0.
Monaco, which reached the semifinals in 2004 on its way to the final, will join Juventus, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid in Friday’s draw.
Dortmund: police held team bus for 20 minutes before game
Borussia Dortmund says French police stopped the team bus leaving the team hotel for 20 minutes before yesterday’s Champions League game against Monaco — one week after Dortmund’s bus was attacked prior to the home leg.
“The police didn’t let our team bus leave the hotel without giving the reason for around 20 minutes,” Dortmund said on its official Twitter account. No further details were given.
Kickoff was delayed by five minutes, with soccer’s governing body UEFA saying only that it was due to “late team arrival caused by heavy traffic.”
Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel told SkyTV before kickoff: “We didn’t know what was going on. This quarter-hour (delay) meant we couldn’t think of football, although we were actually well prepared for the game.”
He added: “To be careful how I put it: the (security) behavior was very unfortunate.”
Last Tuesday, three explosions went off as the team headed to the stadium for the home leg against Monaco, leaving defender Marc Bartra needing hospital treatment following injuries to his wrist and arm after a window was shattered. The match was hurriedly rescheduled for the next day and Monaco won 32.