Champions League quarter-finals: tie-by-tie analysis and verdicts

Are Real Madrid any good? They are 10 points clear in La Liga but the sense is that Spanish football is in retreat. They were outplayed for two and a half hours of the last-16 tie against Paris Saint-Germain and for all the brilliance of Karim Benzema and Luka Modric in those final minutes, it’s also true that the turnaround was as much the result of another PSG collapse as anything they did.

Although Carlo Ancelotti’s substitutions made an impact, with Eduardo Camavinga’s energy a major factor, they remain reliant on an ageing midfield. And the feeling with Spanish sides for some time is that physically they are not comfortable against an aggressive press – which perhaps, as much as the need to deny Kylian Mbappé space to accelerate into, explains their weird timidity in Paris.

Madrid will also be aware that Chelsea’s victory over them in last season’s semi-final was more comfortable than the 3-1 aggregate scoreline may have suggested. Although uncertainty haunts the European champions after the sanctions against Roman Abramovich, performances have remained good and there has always been a sense that Thomas Tuchel’s slightly more conservative model of the pressing game is better suited to European competition than the league.

Prediction Chelsea win

Atlético are going through one of their periodic crises of identity, as they toy with switching to a more expansive approach before returning to the defensive, deep-lying spoiling and counterattacking that brought victory over Manchester United. This has not been a classic Atlético season. Even with 10 games to go they have let in more goals than ever before under Diego Simeone, a detail only partly to do with an attempt to push higher up the pitch.

Jan Oblak has been one of