When Man United was eliminated early, two players who were out of their plans, Jadon Sancho and Marcel Sabitzer, reached the semi-finals of the Champions League.
This morning, Borussia Dortmund defeated Atletico Madrid with a score of 4-2 in the second leg of the Champions League quarterfinals at Signal Iduna Park, thereby winning a ticket to the semi-finals. And Jadon Sancho and Marcel Sabitzer are the most prominent players of the black and yellow team.
In Dortmund’s comeback, Sancho started on the right wing in the 4-2-3-1 formation. He is part of an attacking quartet consisting of Julian Brandt in the attacking position, Karim Adeyemi on the opposite flank, with Niclas Fullkrug leading the charge.
With 86 minutes of play, Sancho had 59 touches of the ball. The 24-year-old winger completed 33 out of 38 passes, achieving a passing accuracy of 87%. The player on loan from Man United impressed with 2 decisive passes, 1 cross and 1 successful long pass. In defense from a distance, Sancho showed his efforts with 10 duels and made 1 tackle. One minus point is that the English star only succeeded in 2 out of 8 dribbles.
Meanwhile, the best player of the match was none other than Sabitzer – who was returned by Man United to Bayern Munich after a loan period, before the midfielder went to Dortmund. The Austrian international only had 35 touches of the ball when suddenly allowed to play freely, but was the one who scored the decisive goal for Dortmund, causing the Westfalenstadion to explode. Besides, he also had 2 assists.
Man United will not be happy to see Dortmund reach the semi-finals, because English football is currently competing with Italy and Germany to win another spot in the Champions League next season, when the tournament increases from 32 to 36 teams. This position is awarded through the coefficient of these three major tournaments in Europe, specifically the overall performance of all clubs of a country competing in Europe. The top 2 countries will win 1 more spot.
Before tonight’s match, Italy was comfortably leading with 18,428 coefficient points. Germany ranked second with 16,785 points – but only slightly ahead of third-placed England (16,750). When Dortmund reached the semi-finals, Germany’s coefficient was even higher than England’s. Of course, Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool, West Ham and Aston Villa can all win the tournament with wins in their respective upcoming European matches. In particular, Arsenal and West Ham both clashed with opponents from Germany.
Anyway, Man United must decide its own destiny. Their performance recently has been quite bad. After 32 rounds, Erik ten Hag’s team is only ranked 7th on the Premier League rankings, 10 points behind the 5th ranked team, Tottenham Hotspur. The Red Devils have exhausted their right to self-determination and can only wait for a miracle to win a place to compete in Europe’s top tournament next season.