Doug McIntyre
Soccer Journalist
The Champions League round of 16 is set after the final four clubs — Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain, PSV Eindhoven and trophy holders Real Madrid — all advanced on Wednesday.
Here are three quick thoughts on the day’s games.
Manchester City’s misery continues in Madrid
Despite the four-time defending English Premier League titlist’s struggles both domestically and in the Champions League this season, City fans had reason to hope their team could overturn the 3-2 defeat they suffered last week in Manchester and prevail in the home-and-home, total-goals-wins series.
Manager Pep Guardiola, after all, still boasts one of the world’s best squads. Anything can happen in one game.
But it wasn’t a good omen when Guardiola was forced to leave star forward Erling Haaland out of his lineup because of injury, or when center back John Stones had to be substituted early with an injury of his own.
All of it was too much for the Sky Blues to overcome. Kylian Mbappé scored before the game was four minutes old. He completed his hat trick with a pinpoint strike just after the hour mark as the trophy holders eliminated the 2023 champs for the second year running.
PSV stuns Juventus in extra time
Two days, two giants of the Italian game sent packing before the business end of the world’s most important club tournament by teams from the Netherlands.
On Tuesday, Feyenoord ousted seven-time European champion AC Milan. On Wednesday, it was PSV’s turn to pull the upset, overcoming a 2-1 loss to Juventus last week in Turin to win 3-1 at home and advance 4-3 on aggregate.
Juve looked all but qualified when U.S. star scored a second half rocket to put the hosts ahead on total goals.
But PSV — which started Weah’s fellow American Ricky Ledezma at right back — pulled level through Ismael Saibari with about a quarter-hour of regular time remaining. The hosts then went ahead on an extra-time goal from central defender Ryan Flamingo.
Try as they might, Juve couldn’t claw back the tally they needed to equalize and send the contest to penalty kicks.
PSV, which was without injured USMNT regulars Sergiño Dest, Ricardo Pepi and Malik Tillman, returned to the last 16 for the second consecutive season. The Eredivisie champs will face either Arsenal or Inter Milan when the competition resumes early next month.
Dortmund holds serve, PSG finishes in style
Wednesday’s second leg between PSG and Ligue 1 rivals Brest was always going to be a formality with the hosts holding a 3-0 lead heading into Wednesday’s rematch at Parc des Princes in France’s iconic capital.
It took the Parisians 20 minutes to pad that advantage. But Bradley Barcola’s strike opened up the floodgates; it was the first of seven goals for the hosts scored by seven different players, as PSG kept another clean sheet and advanced to the round of 16 by an astonishing 10-0 aggregate.
Eighteen-year-old French prodigy Senny Mayulu completed Wednesday’s rout in the 86h minute:
In Germany, Borussia Dortmund was content to see out its lopsided first leg advantage, holding Sporting Lisbon to a scoreless tie to advance 3-0 over the two games.
U.S. forward Gio Reyna came off the bench for Dortmund in the second half.
Doug McIntyre is a soccer writer for FOX Sports who has covered the United States men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him at @ByDougMcIntyre.
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