The Athletic FC: Which was the best Champions League goal? Plus: Euro divide

Hello! Thumbs raw from Champions League channel hopping? We can help with that. Coming up:

🤯 Real 3 City 3. Insane in the membrane

🖊️ Harry Kane does pens (and Arsenal)

🥩 Barcelona–PSG beef

⭐ Eastern Europe and its sinking star

Did City lack control?

There’s a theory — an evidence-based theory, to be fair — that Pep Guardiola purposely tries to keep the first leg of Champions League knockout ties tight.

Especially away from home.

Well, not last night. Three goals in 12 first-half minutes, three goals in 13 second-half minutes — including Phil Foden’s absolute belter — and Real Madrid versus Manchester City wound up 3-3 at the Bernabeu.

PHIL FODEN. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! 🚀

WHAT A WAY TO LEVEL THE TIE. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/mJut91l1aY

— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) April 9, 2024

PHIL FODEN 🎯

✨ Star quality ✨#UCL pic.twitter.com/D0ApSFLuTc

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 9, 2024

It might not be Guardiola’s dream scenario, but neutrals love football on narcotics and, to be frank, the Champions League needs more of it — high-risk action in high-stakes games.

This is supposed to be the best of the best.

City had none of their trademark control. Guardiola said they “were not stable emotionally”. But you know what? On reflection, they’ll feel like the most difficult quarter-final on offer has tipped their way with the second leg to come.

Madrid, after all, have some horrible ghosts to deal with at the Etihad.

Did Arsenal hand it to Bayern?

Harry Kane. Back in London, back in Arsenal’s face and reminding you that medals or no medals, he’s the model footballer in so many respects.

Kane has long been deadly with penalties, but the nonchalance of the one he rolled in for Bayern Munich last night, with the Emirates baying, was a joke.

We then had him doubling down by saying he knew David Raya tends to dive early and let the goalkeeper commit first by adding in a little hop to his run-up. That’s good wind-up-merchant territory.

According to Thomas Tuchel, the referee admitted he 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 awarded Bayern Munich a penalty for this incident with Gabriel 👀

🎙 @julesbreach pic.twitter.com/nR2ENVASm2

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 9, 2024

Mind you, speaking of wind-up-merchant territory, what about Gabriel getting away with the weirdest handball you’ll see all season?

OK, the late challenge on Bukayo Saka should have been a penalty, too, so we’re all square in that respect, but the referee giving Gabriel a pass on the basis of “a kid’s mistake” (Thomas Tuchel’s words) was a huge liberty.

With the dust settled, it’s 2-2 and Arsenal are right in the tie. They just know that Bayern still have lead in their pencil.

Which was the best goal?

I don’t know about anyone else, but I found myself skipping between the two quarter-finals constantly (while keeping close tabs on my other day job, Leeds United in the Championship). So did our writer Tim Spiers.

There were so many good goals, 10 across two matches, that we thought we’d ask The Athletic’s readers to vote for the best.

I feel a bit guilty not going for Josko Gvardiol’s. He’s never scored for City before and the finesse of his strike from 20 yards underlined how much defenders like him offer technically now.

But the pick of the finishes? Well, our subscribers have gone for Federico Valverde, with 40 per cent of the vote, closely followed by Foden with 30 percent, Saka in third with 11 per cent, and the remaining votes split among the rest. But for me, it has to be the City forward’s effort. It’s top bins, it’s wonderfully clean and more than anything, as soon as he set himself, you knew.

Barca v PSG Beef 🥩

You go out intending to buy Marco Verratti and you end up selling Neymar. We’ve all been there after a few drinks.

That was Barcelona in 2017 and it was also the genesis of some deep-seated needle between them and Paris Saint-Germain.

PSG shocked Camp Nou by refusing to sell Verratti and then activating Neymar’s huge €222million (£190m; $241m) buy-out clause, causing Barca to now “put their release clauses closer to the €1billion mark”. Since then:

✈️ Barca have pulled sponsorship with Qatar Airways

🇫🇷 PSG have pinched Lionel Messi and Ousmane Dembele from Catalonia on the cheap

⚔️ The clubs have crossed swords over the controversial European Super League

So lots to be passive-aggressive about in the boardroom when they play each other in the Champions League tonight. And a good job Kylian Mbappe’s next destination is most likely Real Madrid.

📺 PSG v Barcelona, 8pm (UK), 3pm (ET); TNT Sports 1/Paramount+

📲 Live blog

Euro Divide ➗

Quick quiz question. Who won the European Cup in 1991?

A free Communist Party membership to those of you who said Red Star Belgrade, back in the days when the former Yugoslavia a) existed as an entity and b) hovered on the fringes of the Iron Curtain.

Eastern Europe was once the domain of some veritable footballing powerhouses, but no longer.

Red Star are the last club from former Communist Europe (FCE) to lift the European Cup and the make-up of this season’s Champions League last 16 — every club involved based to the west of Germany’s most eastern border — is indicative of an established trend.

It’s a quarter of a century since a side from FCE reached the semi-finals. It’s not far off a decade since one made the knockouts. When you get into the weeds, it’s not actually difficult to understand. But it is rather sad.

The Fall of Ajax ⏬

‘Right now, this is a club on fire’

Certain things are synonymous with Ajax. Johan Cruyff. Louis van Gaal’s team of the mid-1990s. In a broader Dutch sense, the concept of Total Football.

Consistently, Ajax gave off this aura of vision and competence via their style of play and their production of high-quality players. It wasn’t that they were often Europe’s dominant force, but they gave the impression of being happy in their own skin.

What they are now is an absolute car crash. The collapse of the House of Ajax and the story behind it leaves me trying to decide what it is that’s most alarming about it.

How about their worst defeat in 97 years in De Klassieker against Feyenoord last weekend? Or their CEO being suspended on suspicion of insider trading after a few weeks in the job? I’m really only scratching the surface.

In short, if you’re wondering why Ajax are nowhere to be seen, you won’t need Poirot to join the dots. One of the coaching staff has admitted: “Right now, this is a club on fire,” while Dutch journalist Sjoerd Mossou adds: “It’s like a war with 20 enemies — everybody is fighting each other.”

Around The Athletic FC 🌎

🇺🇸 Death, taxes, Alyssa Naeher flexing in penalty shootouts. The USMNT are SheBelieves Cup winners again.

🇪🇸 I hate to sound hipster, but if I lived in Madrid, I’d follow Atletico. Mainly because of Diego Simeone. You can’t beat a coach with UFC vibes. Atletico Madrid vs Borussia Dortmund, 8pm (UK), 3pm (ET), TNT Sports 2/Paramount +

🇮🇹 It’s great when a footballer gives proper insight into their own game. Particularly if, like Atalanta’s Ademola Lookman, they once played in England’s third division.

🔴 Yesterday we broke the news that Manchester United’s football director, John Murtough, had resigned. That begs the question — who oversees their next transfer window?

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Lucy Bronze is up to 121 caps for England’s women. But is she still the answer at right-back?

(Top photo: Javier Soriano/AFP via Getty Images)