let's keep rolling with the reverse fixtures !
GL

Barcelona rallied from 2-1 down in the second half of the first leg of their Champions League against PSG in Paris to take a solid 3-2 advantage back home to Spain ahead of Tuesday's second leg. Neither team had a real ability to control the match and prevent transition opportunities for the other team on Wednesday, but Barcelona were more efficient at executing and turning their best moments into chances and goals.

PSG finished the match with more shots attempted and more touches in the opposition penalty area, and Barcelona's inability to defend out of possession leaves the door plenty open for PSG to play its way back into the tie in the second leg. Barcelona did an excellent job of slowing down Kylian Mbappé in the first leg, but a repeat of that performance could be difficult.

The lack of midfield ball stopping and winning in the open field has left major holes in Barcelona's transition defense in the last few months. If you look at La Liga data, Barcelona are dead last in final third to box entry conversion rate allowed. Once teams progress the ball into Barca's defensive final third, they're highly efficient at turning that into dangerous possession and shots. This isn't really a new problem for Xavi's sides in Europe, either. Last year, Barcelona struggled defensively in transition against Inter Milan, Bayern Munich and Manchester United before crashing out of the Europa League in February.

Barcelona lost Sergio Busquets to Inter Miami and then lost Gavi to injury in the fall and don't have a natural defensive midfielder to properly fill the role. While the return of Frenkie de Jong and Pedri for this tie has helped stabilize them in possession in midfield just in time, neither is a plus defensive midfielder.

It was Pedri's elite passing range that found Raphinha in behind the PSG defense for the equalizing goal in the first leg, and a set piece header from Andreas Christensen that gave Barcelona the edge. When Barcelona came out of half time and tried to sit a little deeper out of possession, that's when PSG found multiple goals to claim the lead. A panicked poor clearance led to the first goal from Ousmané Dembele and an unmarked midfield run from Vitinha broke through the Barcelona defense to put the French side up 2-1.

Barcelona should find plenty of success playing on the break in this match with Raphinha and Lamine Yamal making runs into space and PSG's mediocre counterpress getting routinely exposed. The question is whether Barcelona can replicate their plan to slow down Mbappé, who was in plenty of dangerous areas in the first leg but didn't create much in terms of quality chances.

PSG were quite wasteful in the final third and penalty area in the first leg. They managed 40 touches in the Barcelona penalty area, which resulted in just 1.2 expected goals in total. PSG carried the ball into the box 17 times and passed it into the penalty area another 15 times. Mbappé had three total shots, totaling 0.13 xG. You could look at this two ways. On one hand, PSG exposed just how flawed Barcelona are defensively. On the other hand, PSG's wasteful inefficiency has showed up in Europe at various points of the last couple seasons.

The French side played the first leg without star wing back Achraf Hakimi, who was suspended and will return for the second leg. Hakimi's ability to combine with Mbappé makes PSG even more difficult to defend, and a fit and in-form Dembele is a lot of pace and elite transition ability to expose Barcelona's biggest weaknesses.

PSG have played nine Champions League matches this season, including the first leg. The 40 touches in the opposition box they had in the first leg was the second most they had in any of those nine matches. The only match where PSG had more was a 1-1 draw with Newcastle where they totaled 4.4 xG. If anything, the French side was uncharacteristically inefficient and is likely to produce more chances and maybe even goals in this second leg.

The total closed at 3 for the first leg and flew over comfortably. Even with PSG being inefficient in the final third and penalty area, that match was extremely open and end-to-end. It's hard to see either team being capable enough defensively to shut down the scoring. Barcelona are playing with the lead and at home, but their defense is flawed enough out of possession to leave real concerns about their chances of slowing down PSG.

PSG scored twice in the first leg despite extremely inefficient attacking in the penalty area and a quiet game from Mbappé. Down a goal on the road, PSG will be pushing for goals from the opening kickoff and they're well set up to score in this match.

Major questions remain about PSG's defense as well, but the attack will threaten Barcelona more and more as the game becomes stretched.

Atletico Madrid look to close out things here in the second leg in Germany and get to the semifinals.

Dortmund were pretty poor in the first leg in Spain, which isn't that shocking given how their season has gone. They somehow made it out of the group of death with PSG, Newcastle and AC Milan, but were relatively lucky to do so and have been pretty average in the Bundesliga as well. They are going to need to be much better in build up and at breaking down Atletico's defensive block than they were in the first match.

Atletico Madrid put in a fantastic performance in the first leg and could have very easily been up two or three goals here heading into the second leg. These are scenarios that Diego Simeone lives for with Atletico being able to sit deep and defend a one goal lead. It's been a little over five years since Atletico made it to the Champions League semifinals, but they are in a really good position to get back there.

The fatal flaw of Borussia Dortmund got exposed in the first leg against Atletico Madrid. They are a much better team playing without the ball and in transition, rather than being a team that builds out of the back. They tried to build out of the back in the first half against Atletico, but ended up turning it over in their own half countless times and two of them led to Atletico Madrid's goals for the match.

It's been a real problem under Edin Terzic. They often are indecisive on the ball when they are trying to build out of the back, so either teams are able to win the ball off them or they are forced to play a lot of long balls up the pitch. It was very evident in the first leg that they were never going to be able to build up with a lot of success, so they started to play more direct after the first couple of errors.

The other problem in this match is, what if Atletico sit in their famous low defensive block and dares Dortmund to break them down? Dortmund don't face a lot of teams in the Bundesliga who will play passively and sit in a low block for the entire match. Atletico did sit off after going up 2-0 and Dortmund did absolutely nothing against them. Outside of the Haller goal, which was a pretty fortunate deflection to hit for the finish, Dortmund did not register a shot with an xG rating over 0.10 and six of their 12 shots for the match came from outside the box.

The reason that happened is because the profiles of Dortmund's attackers are built to hit teams in transition, not break down defensive blocks. Now that Sebastien Haller is out until the middle of May, they have nobody that can win aerial duals inside the box, so it's really hard for me to see how they improve off of their first leg performance.

Even though Atletico Madrid pressed Dortmund really effectively in the first leg, I have a really hard time seeing Simeone not reverting back to his roots and having Atletico sit deep in this match.

Atletico have been playing out of a 3-5-2 and dropping five guys into the last line when they are out of possession, but something changed in the second half against Dortmund. When out of possession, Atletico switched to a 4-4-2 with an aim at having more cover defending the wide areas against Dortmund's good ball carrying wingers.

In their 3-1 win over Girona this weekend, Simeone lined his team up in a 4-4-2 to start the match for just the first time this season. Girona did end up creating over two expected goals, but half of that came on a tap in the second minute of the match. Other than that, Atletico limited them to a lot of low quality efforts and did a good job keeping them out of the middle of the pitch.

For the season, Atletico's defense has been incredibly good at keeping teams out of their penalty area. They are a passive team by nature, allowing the second-most final third touches in La Liga, but they are only allowing a 24.1% final third to box entry conversion rate, which is the best mark in Spain. That makes it difficult for teams to play through the middle and has ultimately led them to only allowing 1.05 npxG per 90 minutes.

Atletico Madrid are a team that is built to play with a lead because of their out of possession structure. Diego Simeone has time and time again in these scenarios had his team sit off and play a low defensive block to defend the lead. The switch to a 4-4-2 will allow Atletico to defend the wide areas a little better against Dortmund's wingers, just like they did in the first leg.

Dortmund really don't have the attackers available to breakdown Atletico Madrid's defensive block, which was very evident in the first leg when they only created 0.9 expected goals. Dortmund's a team that is much better playing without the ball and playing in transition, so if we have a repeat of the first leg where Atletico Madrid allow them to control 66% of the possession, then Dortmund are really going to struggle to create chances.

I think it's going to be really hard for Dortmund to put the ball in the back of the net twice