{"id":27645,"date":"2025-04-17T05:57:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T05:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/?p=27645"},"modified":"2025-04-17T05:57:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T05:57:39","slug":"psg-to-reach-champions-league-semi-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/?p=27645","title":{"rendered":"PSG to reach Champions League semi-final"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Birmingham: \u2013 Paris Saint-Germain survived a second half onslaught to beat Aston Villa 5-4 on aggregate and reach the Champions League semi-finals despite a 3-2 defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The French champions were cruising towards the last four when full-backs Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes struck in the first 27 minutes to add to their 3-1 first leg lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Youri Tielemans pulled a goal back for the English side before half-time and two goals in two minutes from John McGinn and Ezri Konsa transformed the tie early in the second period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PSG were thankful to goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma for keeping Unai Emery’s men at bay and preventing another famous collapse in the Champions League knockout stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“At the end, we got them suffering like we did,” said Emery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To get this level is the next step forward that I want to try to build with Aston Villa.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villa boss Emery was in charge of PSG when Luis Enrique’s Barcelona overturned a 4-0 first leg deficit with a dramatic 6-1 win in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luis Enrique again emerged victorious over his compatriot but this time was the one who watched his team almost blow a seemingly unassailable lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I have to say that match for us is something that allows us to grow up and try to compete even better,” said Luis Enrique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“On the whole two matches we deserved to win and we are very happy because it’s the second year in a row in the semi-finals.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villa had not experienced a European night like this since 1983 and there was an embarrassing moment for the hosts before a ball was kicked as the Europa League anthem was played instead of the famous pre-match hymn of the Champions League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Birmingham: \u2013 Paris Saint-Germain survived a second half onslaught to beat Aston Villa 5-4 on aggregate and reach the Champions League semi-finals despite a 3-2 defeat. The French champions were… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":27646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1743],"class_list":["post-27645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-football-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27647,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27645\/revisions\/27647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}