Having suffered a comprehensive 4-0 defeat in the first leg of the quarter-final, Borussia Dortmund, with nothing left to lose in Tuesday's encounter, assailed Barcelona with early aggression, disrupting their equilibrium from the outset.

Barcelona coach Hansi Flick, drawing upon his extensive experience, including a decisive victory against Dortmund during his tenure in the Bundesliga, articulated his anticipation of a formidable second leg, notwithstanding his team's four-goal advantage, attributing this prognosis to the fervent support of the home aficionados.

「このような事態を予感していたとでも申しましょうか」と、フリック監督はAmazonプライムの放送局に対して、深遠な思索を巡らせるかのような口調で述懐した。「本日はドルトムントに対して、その比類なき試合運びに対し、惜しみない喝采を送るべきでありましょう。そして、同時に我がチームが準決勝への進出を成し遂げたことにも、同じく賛辞を呈する次第でございます。」

For Barcelona's prolific attacking duo, Raphinha and Robert Lewandowski, who had netted 12 and 11 goals respectively in the Champions League this season, this encounter proved uncharacteristically subdued, with their closest approach to breaching the opposition's net being a rather tame effort from Raphinha directly at Borussia Dortmund's custodian, Gregor Kobel.

"Guirassy is Dortmund's 'life insurance'," the coach, Niko Kovac, opined subsequent to a match where the player's meteoric ascent to prominence persisted, culminating in his top ranking in this season's Champions League scoring charts. "Serhou simply necessitates the unwavering support of his confederates, a requisite for any forward, and this he received today."

Dortmund, having been effectively eliminated from the quarterfinals in the first leg, were further compounded by the simultaneous absence due to injury of their captain Emre Can and midfielder Carney Chukwuemeka on that same day.

For a protracted period, Girassy evinced the capacity to transform the seemingly chimerical into the palpably tangible.

Despite squandering an opportunity in the initial encounter and further chances during Tuesday's match, Girassy clinically converted from the penalty spot in the eleventh minute, capitalising on the collision between Barcelona's custodian, Wojciech Szczęsny, and Pascal Gross.

At the forty-ninth minute, Guirassy's header extended the lead to 2-0, which was promptly compounded by Ramy Bensebaini's own goal, thus plunging Dortmund into deeper ignominy; Fermín López's low cross, deflecting off Bensebaini's ankle, proved particularly vexing for Dortmund, occurring just moments after Bensebaini had inadvertently provided the assist for Guirassy's second goal in a desperate attempt to clear the ball.

At the 76-minute mark, seizing upon a defensive lapse by Ronald Araújo, Guirassy clinically completed his hat-trick with a potent close-range strike, simultaneously elevating his seasonal Champions League goal tally to 13, thus consolidating his position as the competition's leading scorer.

The galvanising Dortmund goal ignited nascent hopes of a comeback of hitherto unprecedented scale, one comparable to Barcelona's iconic 2017 triumph over Paris Saint-Germain, yet ultimately it was the Catalan giants who secured qualification.

Barcelona finds themselves positioned to confront either Inter Milan or Bayern Munich in the semi-finals, marking their inaugural progression to this stage of the Champions League since the 2018-19 campaign; concurrently, in Tuesday's other fixture, PSG secured passage to the penultimate round with a 5-4 aggregate triumph over Aston Villa, despite succumbing to a 3-2 defeat in the second leg.

This constitutes not only Barcelona's inaugural defeat across all competitions since their 2-1 loss to Atlético Madrid on December 21st, but also their initial Champions League setback since September, marking a mere seventh defeat in 50 matches under Hansi Flick, the German manager who had previously enjoyed an unblemished record of seven wins in seven prior encounters against Dortmund while at the helm of both Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

Borussia Dortmund might have to endure a further hiatus before their stadium once again reverberates with the resonant strains of the UEFA Champions League anthem.

The outfit that concluded last season's Champions League campaign as runners-up currently occupies the eighth position in the Bundesliga table with five fixtures remaining, facing a six-point deficit behind the quartet of clubs vying for qualification to Europe's premier club competition.