The Champions League semi-finals presented us with two contrasting outings. One was a scintillating, red-hot goalfest – the other was a cagey, tactical affair from two outfits who looked to frustrate the other.
But who made it into our team of the week? One thing is for certain – it was much easier to pick out the attacking players than it was the defenders this week.
GK: David Raya
None of the four goalkeepers kept a clean sheet in their respective semi-final games, but David Raya was easily the best of the bunch.
He made some excellent saves against Atletico Madrid, including a snapshot effort from Julian Alvarez that almost caught the Spanish international off-guard.
RB: Achraf Hakimi
Achraf Hakimi was desperately, desperately unfortunate in PSG’s thriller against Bayern Munich. He was excellent until he suffered a hamstring injury that could see him ruled out for the rest of the season and the World Cup.
Putting forth a solid contribution at both ends of the pitch, making some brilliant tackles and notching up an assist, let’s hope the Moroccan international can enjoy a speedy recovery.
CB: William Saliba
This wasn’t William Saliba’s best performance by any stretch – but as we’ve mentioned, the semi-finals contained very few strong defensive performances.
Saliba did everything he had to do, making some important clearances throughout, but the Frenchman has certainly had better games than this.
CB: Dayot Upamecano
Yes, Dayot Upamecano might have conceded a whopping five goals against PSG – but he did score one, so that has to count for something.
Upamecano can’t really be blamed for much of Bayern Munich’s defensive frailties on Tuesday night. Every time they went forward, they committed almost all of their players to every attack, leaving Upamecano and Jonathan Tah to fight an uphill battle on the counter-attack.