Serhou Guirassy and Borussia Dortmund accomplished a feat unparalleled in 2025: they vanquished Barcelona, yet this triumph proved insufficient to secure passage to the Champions League semifinals.

Despite Guirassy's remarkable hat-trick, his team ultimately suffered a comprehensive aggregate defeat, as Dortmund's 3-1 victory over Barcelona – an uncharacteristic setback for the Catalan giants, marking their first loss across all competitions since December – proved insufficient to overturn the overall 5-3 deficit.

Having suffered a resounding 4-0 defeat in the initial leg of the quarterfinal, Dortmund found themselves in an unassailable position on Tuesday and launched an aggressive offensive against Barcelona from the outset, thus discombobulating the visiting side.

Hansi Flick, the Barcelona tactician, a veteran of numerous encounters with—and victories over—Dortmund during his Bundesliga tenure, articulated that the fervid home support had presaged a formidable second leg, notwithstanding his squad's four-goal aggregate advantage.

Flick intimated to broadcaster Amazon Prime an inkling of prescient apprehension regarding the impending denouement, subsequently extending felicitations to Dortmund for their meritorious performance whilst simultaneously lauding his own squad's attainment of the semi-final berth.

The encounter proved notably subdued for Barcelona's redoubtable frontmen, Raphinha and Robert Lewandowski, whose seasonal tallies in the Champions League stood at a formidable twelve and eleven strikes apiece; their most significant offensive manoeuvre was a rather innocuous effort from Raphinha directed towards Dortmund's custodian, Gregor Kobel.

Guirassy, in the estimation of coach Niko Kovac following a match that solidified his burgeoning renown and positioned him at the apex of the Champions League scoring charts this season, is veritably Dortmund's "life insurance," requiring solely the unwavering support of his teammates, a requisite for any striker, which he received in ample measure today.

Dortmund's quarterfinal ouster was arguably sealed in the initial leg, compounded by the eleventh-hour incapacitation of captain Emre Can and midfielder Carney Chukwuemeka through injury.

For a spell, Guirassy rendered the seemingly improbable, potentially attainable.

Having squandered opportunities in the initial encounter and spurned a further pair early in Tuesday's fixture, Guirassy exhibited no profligacy from the penalty spot in the eleventh minute following a collision between Barcelona's custodian, Wojciech Szczesny, and Pascal Gross.

Guirassy's header notched the score to 2-0 in the 49th minute, prior to Ramy Bensebaini's own goal compounding Dortmund's predicament, a debacle precipitated by Fermín López's low cross deflecting off Bensebaini's ankle — a double blow considering the defender's recent pivotal role in the attempted resurgence, having furnished the assist for Guirassy's preceding second goal.

Guirassy capitalised on Ronald Araujo's defensive miscue to notch his hat-trick with a forceful point-blank strike in the 76th minute, thereby ascending to the apex of the Champions League's scoring charts this season with 13 goals.

This afforded Dortmund a renewed and tantalising prospect of orchestrating what would assuredly have been one of the Champions League's most epochal turnarounds — a comeback of a magnitude to stand comparison with Barcelona's against Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 — yet Barcelona ultimately evinced the requisite resolve to see out the fixture and advance.

Advancing to the semifinals, Barcelona is poised to confront either Inter Milan or Bayern Munich, marking their inaugural appearance in the Champions League's penultimate stage since the 2018-19 campaign; concurrently, in Tuesday's parallel fixture, Paris Saint-Germain, despite a second-leg deficit of 3-2, secured their semifinal berth with a commanding 5-4 aggregate triumph over Aston Villa.

Beyond marking Barcelona's inaugural comprehensive defeat across all tournaments subsequent to their 2-1 setback against Atletico Madrid on December 21st, this outcome represented the Catalan club's initial Champions League reverse since September, and notably constituted merely the seventh loss throughout Flick's quinquagintal managerial tenure, a period during which the German tactician had previously secured unequivocal triumph in all seven of his preceding encounters against Dortmund whilst at the helm of both Barcelona and Bayern.

The return of the Champions League anthem to Dortmund's stadium may be subject to a protracted hiatus.

The previous campaign's Champions League vanquished finalist is currently mired in eighth place in the Bundesliga standings, adrift by a six-point margin from the quartet of Champions League qualification berths, with merely five fixtures left to contest.