‘I have best squad in the world’: PSG boss Enrique after surviving Villa onslaught

Paris St Germain coach Luis Enrique hailed his squad as the best in the world on Tuesday after they reached the Champions League semifinals with a 5-4 aggregate win over Aston Villa.

The French side, who have never won Europe's elite club competition, will face either Arsenal or Real Madrid in their second semifinal in two years.

On Tuesday, they lost 3-2 to Aston Villa in the second leg and the English side would have drawn level 5-5 or even won it over the two matches had goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma not pulled off a remarkable series of second-half saves.

“I think I have the best squad in the world, not only the goalkeeper. When you are in a club like PSG, you have a lot of quality players,” Luis Enrique told Amazon Prime TV.

“I think in the whole two matches, we deserved to win... I am very happy because I can offer our supporters another qualification to the semifinal.”

The PSG boss praised Villa's quality and intensity, which saw them come back on Tuesday from 2-0 down — putting them 5-1 behind on aggregate — to score three times.

“We started the game in a great way, scoring two amazing goals, trying to take advantage of the spaces,” he said.

“We cannot forget, this is the Champions League and you have to accept that the opposite team has a lot of quality. Aston Villa played with a lot of intensity in the second half.

Villa are now focused on getting straight back next year into Europe's top club competition.

“I am very proud of everything we did in the Champions League,” Villa boss Unai Emery said as the dust settled from a pulsating clash.

Villa are seventh in the Premier League but only a point off fifth which would secure them a Champions League berth again.

“It is now most important to get Europe again. The most important competition is the Champions League. The challenge we have for the last six matches [of the Premier League] is to try to get Europe and the Champions League.”

His pride at Villa's strong showing, after a four-decade absence from Europe's elite, was tinged with frustration at just failing to pull off a remarkable comeback as they came so close to scoring a fourth goal at Villa Park that would have levelled the tie on aggregate.

“We were close,” he said, adding that he had to push his team on to achieve ever more. “Still a little bit more to do better, to try to get it.”

PSG appeared to have sealed the contest within the first half-hour as their marauding fullbacks Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes scored from two flowing counterattacks to stun Villa Park.

But Youri Tielemans revived hope with a 34th-minute deflected goal before Villa stunned the visitors early in the second half with two goals in two minutes from John McGinn and Ezri Konsa.

Villa poured forward, drawing a string of outstanding saves from Donnarumma to preserving the aggregate win. 

Also on Tuesday night, five-time European champions Barcelona reached their first Champions League semifinal in six seasons with a 5-3 aggregate victory despite being beaten 3-1 away to Borussia Dortmund at on Tuesday.

Serhou Guirassy scored a hat-trick for Dortmund at Signal Iduna Park to condemn Barca to their first defeat across all competitions this year but that could not prevent the Catalans from reaching the last four.

The Guinea international — the competition's top scorer with 13 goals — opened his account with an 11th minute chipped penalty, and he headed in the hosts' second goal four minutes after the restart as the hosts attempted to bounce back from last week's 4-0 first leg loss.

Dortmund's attempt to match Barcelona's Champions League record of overturning a four-goal first leg deficit in a knockout stage was derailed by Ramy Bensebaini's 54th minute own goal that settle Spanish nerves.

Guirassy completed his hat-trick in the 76th, pouncing on a defensive error, but, with Dortmund still needing two more goals to take the game to extra-time, the hosts gradually ran out of steam.

Barcelona will play either Inter Milan or Bayern Munich, who face each other on Wednesday. 

Reuters