The contrast at the heart of the Champions League semi-finals – and what it says about football’s future

At this stage of the season, when the Champions League really reaches that gloriously charged air, even staff meetings can have an edge about getting it right. While some coaches at both Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain are naturally concerned with working out structures to stop opposition attackers, for example, others are more keen to shift the emphasis. Make them stop us.

In other words, to go for it. To let Jamal Musiala rampage at PSG and pin them back, as Kvicha Kvaratshkelia tries to do the same to Manuel Neuer’s defence. The potential effects could be electric football, and a tie to match any of those from recent Champions League history and the 2015-19 “era of comebacks”.

They would also be a natural follow-on from the free-flowing play we saw between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid in the quarter-final , perhaps suggesting new trends for the competition. Arsenal progressed past Sporting despite an anxious second leg (Reuters) Except, in the other semi-final, we may well see other evolving trends. If PSG-Bayern is set up to be attackers expressing themselves from end to end, Atletico Madrid - Arsenal looks likelier to be a fraught battle within the margins.

The contrast was already visible in the quarter-final that took place at the exact same time as Bayern’s victory over Real Madrid. While Arda Guler and Luis Diaz were exchanging screamers at the Allianz, there weren’t even any goals in Arsenal’s second-leg elimination of Sporting. And while Atletico Madrid’s defeat of Barcelona was as absorbing as anything seen in Munich, that was more about clashing styles making the game rather than an exhibition of open play.