Mark Doyle

Bayern Munich ended a run of four consecutive Champions League knockout stage losses to Real Madrid in the most thrilling fashion on Wednesday night, with the Bavarians scoring two stunning goals in the closing stages of an epic quarter-final clash to beat los Blancos 4-3 on the night and 6-4 on aggregate. Unsurprisingly, Vincent Kompany's fantastic forward-line played a starring role in the victory.

Paris Saint-Germain knocked Liverpool out of the Champions League for the second consecutive season at Anfield on Tuesday evening. Unsurprisingly, Ousmane Dembele proved decisive once again. Just over a year after scoring the only goal of the second leg of the two teams' last-16 tie, which eventually led to PSG progressing on penalties, the winger returned to Merseyside to score twice in a 2-0 win that earned the defending champions a comprehensive 4-0 win on aggregate.

Liverpool's hopes of salvaging a shocking season were washed away on a miserable night on Merseyside on Tuesday evening, as an Ousmane Dembele double earned Paris Saint-Germain a 2-0 win at Anfield that saw Luis Enrique's men progress to the semi-finals of the Champions League 4-0 on aggregate. As with the first leg at the Parc des Princes, Arne Slot got his starting line-up all wrong, with the Reds boss sensationally deciding to hand Alexander Isak his first start since recovering from a broken leg earlier this month.

Liverpool are still alive in this season's Champions League. Nobody quite knows how, of course. Arne Slot's side were played off the pitch by Paris Saint-Germain last week but managed to escape from the Parc des Princes with a 2-0 defeat that Jamie Carragher acknowledged actually felt like a "great result" for the visitors, given the chasm in cohesion and confidence between the two teams.

Barcelona's frustration during and after Wednesday night's Champions League loss to Atletico Madrid was perfectly understandable. The Blaugrana had been the better side in the first leg of the quarter-final tie at Camp Nou - and that was in spite of the fact that they had played more than half the game with 10 men following Pau Cubarsi's straight red card just before the break.

Liverpool legend Mohamed Salah may have scored on his first appearance at Anfield since announcing he'll be leaving the club at the end of the season, but teenage sensation Rio Ngumoha was the undoubted star of the show as the Reds recorded a morale-boosting 2-0 win over Fulham on Saturday afternoon that boosted their Champions League hopes - in every sense.

On the evening of February 28 in Verona, Romelu Lukaku came off the bench at the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi to score a 96th-minute winner for Napoli against Verona with a close-range left-footed finish. It was by no means a beautiful goal - goalkeeper Lorenzo Montipo had got a hand on the ball - but it was easily one of the most significant strikes of Lukaku's entire career.

Arne Slot admitted on the eve of Liverpool's Champions League quarter-final first leg against Paris Saint-Germain that his side had suffered so many setbacks this season that he there wouldn't have been time to reference them all in the one press conference. In that sense, Wednesday's 2-0 loss at Parc des Princes could be passed off as just another disappointing defeat to add to an already lengthy list.

Liverpool's hopes of salvaging their season were dealt another devastating blow on Wednesday, as Arne Slot's struggling side slumped to a dismal 2-0 defeat in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final clash with Paris Saint-Germain. The under-fire coach had challenged his players to deliver a "strong and firm" response to last weekend's FA Cup capitulation at Manchester City, but while they never gave up at Parc des Princes, they still succumbed meekly to vastly superior opposition.

If recent reports are to be believed, Liverpool have identified Michael Olise as the ideal replacement for the outgoing Mohamed Salah. However, wanting to sign the France forward and actually managing to do so are two very different things altogether. Bayern's bid to sign Florian Wirtz last summer may have been blown out of the water by Liverpool - but they have absolutely no intention of selling Olise to the Reds at the end of the current campaign.

There were just a few minutes to go in the first half of Brazil's friendly with France last week when Raphinha began to experience what Carlo Ancelotti called "mild discomfort" in his right thigh. However, the mere fact that he failed to re-emerge for the second period at the Gillette Stadium immediately put Barcelona's medical team on red alert and they promptly reached out to the winger, desperately hoping to receive reassurance that he hadn't aggravated an issue that had already sidelined him twice this season.

Gianluigi Donnarumma was one of just a number of Italy players reduced to tears by Tuesday's World Cup play-off loss to Bosnia and Herzegovina - but the penalty shootout defeat in Zenica hit the goalkeeper harder than most. This wasn't the first time he'd been involved in a failed attempt to qualify - it was the third. Despite his devastation, though, Donnarumma remained defiant.

There was always a chance that Liverpool would announce a high-profile departure during the international break and, just three days after their latest Premier League setback at Brighton, the Reds confirmed that Mohamed Salah would be leaving at the end of the current campaign. The timing of the announcement surprised some, but Salah had successfully pushed for the news to be made public more than two months before the end of the season in what felt like an obvious attempt to control the narrative surrounding his painful and unexpectedly early exit.

There really is nothing like the World Cup. Even just qualifying generates a level of nationwide excitement that the club game simply cannot match, which is why we witnessed truly joyous scenes all across the globe during the March international break, as the final six qualifiers were confirmed for this summer's festival of football in North America.

The Neymar chants began just moments after Hugo Ekitike put France 2-0 up on Brazil at the Gillette Stadium. It was the last thing Carlo Ancelotti would have wanted to hear, but probably the first thing he would have expected in the circumstances. The Italian's decision to leave out the Selecao's all-time leading goal-scorer from his latest squad had dominated the build-up to Thursday's high-profile friendly in Foxborough.

Italy are World Cup royalty. Only five-time winners Brazil have been crowned champions on more occasions than the Azzurri (four). And yet it's now 20 years since Italy last lifted the trophy. Worse still, they've failed to qualify for the past two tournaments, meaning there's an entire generation that have never seen their country even play in a World Cup.

In November, we were treated to the most exhilarating reminder possible of the magic of the World Cup. History was made in Jamaica as Curacao became the smallest nation ever to qualify by holding the Reggae Boys to a 0-0 draw in Kingston. Elsewhere in CONCACAF, Haiti managed to secure a spot at the finals for the first time in 50 years with a 2-0 win over Nicaragua - in spite of the fact that they weren't able to play any games at home because of the ongoing conflict on the Caribbean island.

After the mini-montage of memorable Mohamed Salah moments, the man himself entered the frame and took a seat in front of his colossal trophy cabinet. After a brief pause, and a deep breath that turned into a sigh, he began to speak, "Hello, everyone, unfortunately, the day has come." And there can't have been a single football fan across the world that didn't know what that meant: Salah was leaving Liverpool.