Borussia Dortmund vs. Monaco: Live coverage and score updates for Champions League quartefinals

There’s going to be a big showdown in Monaco as AS Monaco get set to host Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League quarterfinal. With Monaco nursing a narrow 3-2 aggregate lead, they’re going to need a second big-time performance from their top-shelf young star, Kylian Mbappe.

To that end, they’ve named a starting lineup designed to get him as much support as possible. Falcao will force defenders to be honest and not overload marking Mbappe, and the creative team of João Moutinho, Bernardo Silva, and Thomas Lemar will be able to feed him the ball on a regular basis. Dortmund’s defense is going to be hard-pressed to deal with such a dynamic threat as what Monaco are trying to create, but their own attack has to be taken seriously as well in this tie.

On Tuesday, Borussia Dortmund’s team bus was attacked with explosives, injuring defender Marc Bartra. Their UEFA Champions League match against AS Monaco was postponed, but only by one day. Dortmund was forced by UEFA to play the match on Wednesday, and likely would have suffered a forfeit if they decided not to take the pitch.

”We were never asked, we were informed by a text message that the UEFA made a decision in Switzerland,” said Dortmund manager Thomas Tuchel. “It felt lousy. And that sticks with us. Minutes after the attacks the only question was whether the game could go through or not. We were treated as if a beer can was thrown at the bus.”

Playing one day after their bus was struck by explosives, Borussia Dortmund looked in no mood to compete with one of Europe’s best teams in the first half of their Champions League game against AS Monaco. They recovered to put together a very good second-half performance, but still lost 3-2, and will face a tough task in the second leg.

The referees got off to just as slow of a start as Dortmund’s players on Wednesday evening. Monaco was given a soft penalty in the 16th minute, when Kylian Mbappe went down after very minimal contact from Sokratis. Thankfully for BVB, Fabinho missed from the spot.

You’re not going to see many goals better executed than this one.

The talent on display for Borussia Dortmund here was amazing. Nuri Sahin, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Shinji Kagawa and the eventual scorer Ousmane Dembele all played their parts to create a tap-in.

AS Monaco took a 1-0 lead in their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal against Borussia Dortmund thanks to Kylian Mbappe ... and some favorable officiating.

From this photo, it’s pretty clear that Mbappe was well offside when the ball was crossed to him by Thomas Lemar.

In the first Champions League knockout round, two teams stood out from the field as by far the most entertaining. On Wednesday, those two teams go head to head in the first leg of the quarterfinals, as AS Monaco head to Germany to face Borussia Dortmund.

It’s an excellent and exciting matchup, pitting two teams that are better than they look on paper in a tie that should allow each side to show the best parts of themselves. Both Monaco and Dortmund have the ability to thrive in a high-pressure matchup like this, and with the kind of freedom and fun both of these teams can put on display, this has the potential to be the most scintillating Champions League tie we’ve seen in a long, long time.