Author: Jideofor Elumogo

Playing with an extra man for more than an hour, Paris Saint-Germain rallied against Barcelona to reach the Champions League semi-finals.

Kylian Mbappé scored twice as PSG reversed its first-leg loss at home with a 4-1 win at Barcelona on Tuesday to advance 6-4 on aggregate and keep alive its hopes of a first European title in what is the France star’s final season with the club.

Former Barcelona forward Ousmane Dembélé and Vitinha also scored for PSG, which took advantage of a 29th-minute red card to Barcelona defender Ronald Araujo after he fouled Bradley Barcola while trying to stop a breakaway.

“When it was 11 against 11 we were well organized. The sending off changes everything. The match changed completely,” said Barcelona coach Xavi Hernández, who was later sent off himself for complaining. “We would have liked to play PSG 11 against 11. That should not have been a red card.”

Barcelona had gotten off to a good start and opened the scoring with a goal by Raphinha in the 12th, but the visitors took control with the man advantage and didn’t let Barcelona get back into the game. Xavi had to replace young forward Lamine Yamal with defender Iñigo Martínez after the red card to Araujo, who was deemed by the referee to be the last defender when he fouled Barcola.

PSG is back in the semifinals after two consecutive eliminations in the round of 16.

“I feel very proud,” said PSG coach Luis Enrique, a former Barcelona player and coach. “We showed what we wanted to do here today. We conceded a goal, but we stayed intact mentally. We continued to play, to attack. We did everything we could to be better than Barcelona. My players showed a lot of character, a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of desire.”

The Catalan side, which won the first leg 3-2 in Paris last week, made it to the knockout stage of Europe’s top club competition after back-to-back eliminations in the group stage.

In the other quarterfinal on Tuesday, Borussia Dortmund defeated Atletico Madrid 4-2 at home to advance 5-4 on aggregate. PSG and Dortmund will meet in one of the semifinals.

Mbappé scored his goals in the 61st and 89th minutes. The France star is hoping to win what would be a first Champions League title for himself and for PSG before he leaves the club.

Barcelona opened the scoring in its first attack with a fortuitous goal by Raphinha after Lamine Yamal’s low cross from the right side bounced off the shin of the Brazil forward and went into the net.

PSG equalized about 10 minutes after Araujo was sent off, with Dembélé finding the net by the far post after a cross by Barcola. Dembélé, named the man of the match, was loudly jeered by the Barcelona crowd when he was substituted in the final minutes. He had also scored in the first leg in Paris.

“We didn’t give up, we knew we were going to score goals here,” Dembélé said. “A big shift from the whole team. We worked the entire week, tactically, with the coach. His tactics were perfect. Even though we conceded the first goal, we didn’t let our heads drop. We continued to believe.”

PSG took the lead when Vitinha fired a low shot from outside the area in the 54th. The visitors increased their lead when Mbappé converted a penalty kick after Dembélé was brought down by João Cancelo inside the area.

Barcelona had chances to get back into the game, with Ilkay Gündogan hitting the post in the 56th and both Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha squandering chances toward the end of the match.

Mbappé’s second goal came from close range in a breakaway in the final minutes. He has now scored at least 40 club goals in all competitions for the third time in four seasons with PSG. He has scored 13 goals in his last 13 Champions League matches.

Xavi was sent off after kicking a cushion protecting a sideline camera in the 56th.

-Dortmund Triumph-

Marcel Sabitzer scored late and set up two goals to send Borussia Dortmund into the Champions League semifinals with a helter-skelter 4-2 win over Atlético Madrid on Tuesday.

After losing the first leg of their quarterfinal 2-1 in Madrid, Dortmund had to come from behind twice over two legs to advance 5-4 on aggregate.

Julian Brandt opened the scoring to level the tie before Sabitzer set up Ian Maatsen to give Dortmund a 2-0 lead on the night.

Atlético coach Diego Simeone responded with three changes at the break and they all paid off. A Mats Hummels own goal and goal from substitute Joaquín Correa put the Spanish side back in front on aggregate.

Then Sabitzer set up Niclas Füllkrug in the 71st minute for the Germany forward’s first goal after nine scoreless games, and Sabitzer scored himself three minutes later to send Dortmund into the last four.

“That was a rollercoaster, a really great evening,” Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke said. “It’s not always like that for Borussia Dortmund. The last time we were in the semifinals was in 2013. This is a great day for all Borussen.”

Dortmund will face Paris Saint-Germain again in the semifinals. PSG progressed to the final four with a 4-1 win at Barcelona. The teams played already this season with Dortmund losing 2-0 in Paris in their opening group match, then drawing 1-1 in their final game as Dortmund topped Group F.

The final will be played June 1 in London, where Dortmund lost the 2013 final 2-1 to bitter rival Bayern Munich.

Tuesday’s win stretched Dortmund’s unbeaten run at home in the Champions League to 10 games.

“We were close to tying the game, but they were superior, and when a team is superior they should be congratulated,” said Simeone, who blamed his team’s elimination on wasted opportunities from the first leg when Atletico dominated but failed to build a bigger advantage.

Atlético needed goalkeeper Jan Oblak at his best. He denied Brandt, then Karim Adeyemi, before Brandt finally made the breakthrough in the 34th, firing a powerful shot in off Oblak’s leg from a difficult angle after eluding former teammate Axel Witsel.

Sabitzer then combined with Maatsen, who surged past two defenders and fired the ball inside the far post in the 39th. It was the Dutch defender’s first Champions League goal.

But Atlético only needed four minutes after the break to level the tie when Hummels’ attempted clearance of Mario Hermoso’s header ended in his own net.

Correa should have scored shortly afterward when he nudged the ball wide. Simeone — dressed sharply in a black suit — flopped to the ground in frustration.

Correa made no mistake in the 64th when he fired in a rebound after his first attempt was blocked.

It put the visitors back in front, but Sabitzer was involved in both goals as Dortmund struck twice in three minutes to send the home fans wild.

“Such nights are special, this Champions League season is special,” Brandt said. “To see all these happy faces here in the stadium is pure happiness.”

The desert nation of the United Arab Emirates attempted to dry out Wednesday from the heaviest rain ever recorded there after a deluge flooded out Dubai International Airport, disrupting travel through the world’s busiest airfield for international travel.

The state-run WAM news agency called the rain Tuesday “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949.” That’s before the discovery of crude oil in this energy-rich nation then part of a British protectorate known as the Trucial States.

Rain also fell in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. However, the rains were acute across the UAE. One reason may have been “cloud seeding,” in which small planes flown by the government go through clouds burning special salt flares. Those flares can increase precipitation.

Several reports quoted meteorologists at the National Center for Meteorology as saying they flew six or seven cloud-seeding flights before the rains. The center did not immediately respond to questions Wednesday, though flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed one aircraft affiliated with the UAE’s cloud-seeding efforts flew around the country Sunday.

The UAE, which heavily relies on energy-hungry desalination plants to provide water, conducts cloud seeding in part to increase its dwindling, limited groundwater.

The rains began late Monday, soaking the sands and roadways of Dubai with some 20 millimeters (0.79 inches) of rain, according to meteorological data collected at Dubai International Airport. The storms intensified around 9 a.m. local Tuesday and continued throughout the day, dumping more rain and hail onto the overwhelmed city.

By the end of Tuesday, more than 142 millimeters (5.59 inches) of rainfall had soaked Dubai over 24 hours. An average year sees 94.7 millimeters (3.73 inches) of rain at Dubai International Airport, a hub for the long-haul carrier Emirates.

At the airport, standing water lapped on taxiways as aircraft landed. Arrivals were halted Tuesday night, and passengers struggled to reach terminals through the floodwater covering surrounding roads.

One couple, who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity to speak freely in a country with strict laws that criminalize critical speech, called the situation at the airport “absolute carnage.”

“You cannot get a taxi. There’s people sleeping in the Metro station. There’s people sleeping in the airport,” the man said Wednesday.

They ended up getting a taxi to near their home some 30 kilometers (18 miles) away, but floodwater on the road stopped them. A bystander helped them over a highway barrier with their carry-on luggage, the bottles of gin they picked up from duty-free clinking away.

Dubai International Airport acknowledged Wednesday morning that the flooding had left “limited transportation options” and affected flights as aircraft crews couldn’t reach the airfield.

“Recovery will take some time,” the airport said on the social platform X. “We thank you for your patience and understanding while we work through these challenges.”

Emirates said the airline had halted check-in for passengers departing from Dubai itself from 8 a.m. until midnight Wednesday as it tried to clear the airport of transit passengers — many of whom had been sleeping where they could in its cavernous terminals.

“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused,” the airline said on X. “Emirates is working hard to restore our scheduled operations.”

Passengers on FlyDubai, Emirates’ low-cost sister airline, also faced disruptions.

Paul Griffiths, the airport’s CEO, acknowledged continued issues with flooding Wednesday morning, saying every place an aircraft could be safely parked was taken. Some aircraft had been diverted to Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central, the city-state’s second airfield.

“It remains an incredibly challenging time. In living memory, I don’t think anyone has ever seen conditions like it,” Griffiths told the state-owned talk radio station Dubai Eye. “We are in uncharted territory, but I can assure everyone we are working as hard as we possibly can to make sure our customers and staff are looked after.”

Schools across the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms, largely shut ahead of the storm and government employees were largely working remotely if able. Many workers stayed home as well, though some ventured out, with the unfortunate stalling out their vehicles in deeper-than-expected water covering some roads.

Authorities sent tanker trucks out into the streets and highways to pump away the water. Water poured into some homes, forcing people to bail out their houses.

The country’s hereditary rulers offered no overall damage or injury information for the nation, as some slept in their flooded vehicles Tuesday night. In Ras al-Khaimah, the country’s northernmost emirate, police said one 70-year-old man died when his vehicle was swept away by floodwater.

Fujairah, an emirate on the UAE’s eastern coast, saw the heaviest rainfall Tuesday with 145 millimeters (5.7 inches) falling there.

Authorities canceled school and the government instituted remote work again for Wednesday.

Rain is unusual in the UAE, an arid, Arabian Peninsula nation, but occurs periodically during the cooler winter months. Many roads and other areas lack drainage given the lack of regular rainfall, causing flooding.

Meanwhile in neighboring Oman, a sultanate that rests on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, at least 19 people were killed in heavy rains in recent days, according to a statement Wednesday from the country’s National Committee for Emergency Management. That includes some 10 schoolchildren swept away in a vehicle with an adult, which saw condolences come into the country from rulers across the region.