Bayern and Dortmund seek Champions League glory to kick off big summer of soccer for Germany

It’s shaping up to be quite the few weeks for German soccer.

The country is preparing to stage the European Championship over June and July, with Germany’s national team taking a nicely timed upturn in form.

Before that, Germany might yet be celebrating having a European champion once again, with Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund making up half of the lineup for the Champions League semifinals beginning this week.

The last time Bayern and Dortmund both reached the Champions League semifinals was in 2013 and they went on to meet in the title match at Wembley Stadium, with Bayern winning 2-1. As fate would have it, Wembley will be hosting the final this year, too.

Setting up a repeat of that 2013 final would mean upsetting the odds.

Bayern is up against another European heavyweight in Real Madrid, the record 14-time champion and king of the competition.

Dortmund faces Paris Saint-Germain, whose star striker Kylian Mbappe is looking to lead the French team to its first ever Champions League title in his last season there before a likely move to Madrid.

Germany didn’t have a single semifinalist in each of the last three seasons. In the 2019-20 competition, it had two – Bayern and Leipzig – and Bayern was the eventual champion.

This season, Bayern and Dortmund have mounted impressive European campaigns while underperforming on the domestic front.

Bayern has relinquished its Bundesliga title to Bayer Leverkusen after an 11-year hold on the biggest prize in German soccer, and needs to win the Champions League to avoid a first trophy-less season since 2012.

Dortmund, meanwhile, is in fifth place in the league so its deep run in Europe has come as something of a surprise.

Here’s a closer look at the two games:

BAYERN MUNICH vs. REAL MADRID (TUESDAY)

Madrid should arrive well rested after the Spanish league moved its game at Real Sociedad to Friday. Madrid won 1-0.

With Madrid set to win Spain’s domestic title, coach Carlo Ancelotti kept Jude Bellingham, Vinícius Júnior, Eduardo Camavinga, Toni Kroos, Federico Valverde, Antonio Rudiger and goalkeeper Andriy Lunin on the bench at the start of the league game in San Sebastian. Forward Rodrygo did not travel with the team because of flu.

All started against Manchester City in the second leg of the quarterfinals and are expected to be back in the starting lineup against Bayern.

Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel is leaving at the end of the season, and the Champions League — which he won with Chelsea in 2021 — offers him the chance to go out on a high.

Two months on from Bayern's announcement that Tuchel would depart, he seems more popular than ever among sections of the Bayern support. Part of that is down to the calm, controlled way Bayern knocked out Arsenal in the second leg of their quarterfinal. Partly it's a reaction to Bayern's failure to hire top coaching targets like Bayer Leverkusen's Xabi Alonso or Germany's Julian Nagelsmann.

As Tuchel nears the end of a troubled tenure at Bayern, he's often seemed more upbeat than ever.

“If people want me to stay, it is still an issue that has no priority," Tuchel said Friday when asked about a fan petition begging the club to keep him. "Even if in this case it is a pleasant issue for me."

The injuries that have plagued Bayern this season are easing off, too. Tuchel predicted Friday that Serge Gnabry would recover from his latest problem in time to play — and score — against Madrid on Tuesday, while fellow forward Leroy Sané could also return.

BORUSSIA DORTMUND vs. PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN (WEDNESDAY)

PSG is cruising toward another French league title, but the Champions League is the trophy the Qatar-backed club is desperate to finally get its hands on.

And there would be no better way for Kylian Mbappe to sign off at the end of the season than by leading PSG to victory in European club soccer's elite competition.

The club is already planning for life without its superstar striker, who is set to walk away as a free agent, with players like Randal Kolo Muani, Ousmane Dembele and Goncalo Ramos expected to help fill the void in his absence. But Mbappe could still have a big say in the Champions League and he scored two goals in PSG's 4-1 comeback win against Barcelona in the quarterfinals.

PSG drew 3-3 at home to Le Havre on Saturday after coming back from 3-1 down and needing an equalizer from Ramos in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

It's been a strange season for Dortmund and that was underlined by Saturday's 4-1 loss against top four rival RB Leipzig.

Dortmund has certainly saved its best performances for the Champions League, none better than the comeback win over Atletico Madrid in the quarterfinals.

Striker Sebastien Haller scored in the first leg against Atletico but injured his ankle in Dortmund's next game and hasn't played since. Forward Donyell Malen has been struggling with pain, too.

Much could depend on which version of Jadon Sancho turns up to face PSG.

Sancho, who scored against Leipzig, has shown glimpses of his obvious talent since returning to Dortmund in January on loan from Manchester United. The issue is whether the former England forward can consistently play at his best.

“Both I and Jadon have noticed he isn’t at the peak of his performance yet, but that’s totally OK. That’s something we were aware of when we decided to bring him back, but we know that he’s able to reach that maximum very quickly,” Dormund coach Edin Terzic said Friday. “Every training session, Jadon has a moment that shows his incredible talent and we see how hard-working he is with the team.”

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Real Madrid's Jude Bellingham, centre, celebrates with teammates after scoring his side's third goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, Spain, Sunday, April 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Breton)

PSG's Kylian Mbappe celebrates scoring his side's second goal during the French League One soccer match between Lorient and Paris Saint-Germain at the Moustoir stadium in Lorient, Brittany, western France, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Bayern and Dortmund seek Champions League glory to kick off big summer of soccer for Germany

Bayern and Dortmund seek Champions League glory to kick off big summer of soccer for Germany

Dortmund's players celebrate with fans after winning the Champions League quarterfinal second leg soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and Atletico Madrid at the Signal-Iduna Park in Dortmund, Germany, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Dortmund stands in the semifinal against PSG. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump was intimately involved with all aspects of a scheme to stifle stories about sex that threatened to torpedo his 2016 campaign, his former lawyer said Monday in matter-of-fact testimony that went to the heart of the former president’s hush money trial.

“Everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off,” said Michael Cohen, Trump's fixer-turned-foe and the prosecution's star witness in a case now entering its final, pivotal stretch.

In hours of highly anticipated testimony, Cohen placed Trump at the center of the hush money plot, saying the then-candidate had promised to reimburse the lawyer for the money he fronted and was constantly updated about behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign.

“We need to stop this from getting out,” Cohen quoted Trump as telling him in reference to porn actor Stormy Daniels' account of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. The then-candidate was especially anxious about how the story would affect his standing with female voters.

A similar episode occurred when Cohen alerted Trump that a Playboy model was alleging that she and Trump had an extramarital affair. “Make sure it doesn’t get released,” was Cohen's message to Trump, the lawyer said. The woman, Karen McDougal, was paid $150,000 in an arrangement that was made after Trump received a “complete and total update on everything that transpired.”

“What I was doing, I was doing at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump,” Cohen testified.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied having sexual encounters with the two women.

Cohen is by far the prosecution's most important witness, and though his testimony lacked the electricity that defined Daniels' turn on the stand last week, he nonetheless linked Trump directly to the payments and helped illuminate some of the drier evidence such as text messages and phone logs that jurors had previously seen.

The testimony of a witness with such intimate knowledge of Trump’s activities could heighten the legal exposure of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if jurors deem him sufficiently credible. But prosecutors’ reliance on a witness with such a checkered past — Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the payments — also carries sizable risks with a jury and could be a boon to Trump politically as he fundraises off his legal woes and paints the case as the product of a tainted criminal justice system.

The men, once so close that Cohen boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Trump, had no visible interaction inside the courtroom. The sedate atmosphere was a marked contrast from their last courtroom faceoff, when Trump walked out of the courtroom in October after his lawyer finished questioning Cohen during his civil fraud trial.

This time around, Trump sat at the defense table with his eyes closed for long stretches of testimony as Cohen recounted his decade-long career as a senior Trump Organization executive, doing work that by his own admission sometimes involved lying and bullying others on his boss's behalf.

Jurors had previously heard from others about the tabloid industry practice of “catch-and-kill,” in which rights to a story are purchased so that it can then be quashed. But Cohen's testimony, which continues Tuesday, is crucial to prosecutors because of his direct communication with the then-candidate about embarrassing stories he was scrambling to suppress.

Cohen also matters because the reimbursements he received from a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels, which prosecutors say was meant to buy her silence in advance of the election, form the basis of 34 felony counts charging Trump with falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the reimbursements were logged, falsely, as legal expenses to conceal the payments’ true purpose. Defense lawyers say the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses.

Under questioning from a prosecutor, Cohen detailed the steps he took to mask the payments. When he opened a bank account to pay Daniels, an action he said he told Trump he was taking, he told the bank it was for a new limited liability corporation but withheld the actual purpose.

“I’m not sure they would’ve opened it,” he said, if they knew it was ”to pay off an adult film star for a nondisclosure agreement.”

To establish Trump's familiarity with the payments, Cohen told the jury that Trump had promised to reimburse him. The two men even discussed with Allen Weisselberg, a former Trump Organization chief financial officer, how the reimbursements would be paid as legal services over monthly installments, Cohen testified.

And though Trump's lawyers have said he acted to protect his family from salacious stories, Cohen described Trump as preoccupied instead by the impact they would have on the campaign.

He said Trump even sought to delay finalizing the Daniels transaction until after Election Day so he wouldn’t have to pay her.

“Because," Cohen testified, “after the election it wouldn’t matter” to Trump.

Cohen also gave jurors an insider account of his negotiations with David Pecker, the then-publisher of the National Enquirer, who was such a close Trump ally that Pecker told Cohen his publication maintained a “file drawer or a locked drawer" where files related to Trump were kept.

That effort took on added urgency following the October 2016 disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump was heard boasting about grabbing women sexually.

The Daniels payment was finalized several weeks after that revelation, but Monday's testimony also centered on a deal earlier that fall with McDougal.

Cohen testified that he went to Trump immediately after the National Enquirer alerted him to a story about the alleged McDougal affair. “Make sure it doesn’t get released," he said Trump told him.

Trump checked in with Pecker about the matter, asking him how “things were going” with it, Cohen said. Pecker responded, 'We have this under control, and we’ll take care of this," Cohen testified.

Cohen also said he was with Trump as Trump spoke to Pecker on a speakerphone in his Trump Tower office.

“David had stated that it's going to cost them $150,000 to control the story,” Cohen said. He quoted Trump as saying: “No problem, I will take care of it," which Cohen interpreted to mean that the payment would be reimbursed.

To lay the foundation that the deals were done with Trump's endorsement, prosecutors elicited testimony from Cohen designed to show Trump as a hands-on manager. Acting on Trump's behalf, Cohen said, he sometimes lied and bullied others, including reporters.

“When he would task you with something, he would then say, ‘Keep me informed. Let me know what’s going on,’” Cohen testified. He said that was especially true “if there was a matter that was troubling to him.”

Defense lawyers have teed up a bruising cross-examination of Cohen, telling jurors during opening statements that he's an “admitted liar” with an “obsession to get President Trump.”

Prosecutors aim to blunt those attacks by acknowledging Cohen's past crimes to jurors and by relying on other witnesses whose accounts, they hope, will buttress Cohen's testimony. They include a lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal, as well as Pecker and Daniels.

After Cohen’s home and office were raided by the FBI in 2018, Trump showered him with affection on social media and predicted that Cohen would not “flip.” Months later, Cohen did exactly that, pleading guilty to federal campaign-finance charges.

Besides pleading guilty to the hush money payments, Cohen later admitted lying to Congress about a Moscow real estate project that he had pursued on Trump's behalf during the heat of the 2016 campaign. He was sentenced to three years in prison, but spent much of it in home confinement.

Former President Donald Trump reacts as Michael Cohen testified that he told Trump that the Stormy Daniels story was not contained. in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump attends his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Monday, May 13, 2024. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)

Former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom at Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Mark Peterson/New York Magazine via AP, Pool)

Former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom at Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Mark Peterson/New York Magazine via AP, Pool)

Former President Donald Trump sits in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Mark Peterson/New York Magazine via AP, Pool)

Former President Donald Trump sits in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Mark Peterson/New York Magazine via AP, Pool)

Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump attends his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Monday, May 13, 2024. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)

Former President Donald Trump and lawyer Todd Blanche return to his criminal trial after a short break at Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Sarah Yenesel/Pool Photo via AP)

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump attends his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Monday, May 13 2024. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)

Former President Donald Trump returns to the courtroom after a break at Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Pool)

Michael Cohen, left, testifies on the witness stand in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

Assistant district attorney Susan Hoffinger, center, questions witness Michael Cohen, far right, as Donald Trump, far left, looks on in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

Michael Cohen testifies on the witness stand with a National Enquirer cover story about Donald Trump displayed on a screen in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

Michael Cohen, right, leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

Donald Trump, left, a possible 2012 presidential candidate, left, and attorney Michael Cohen, are pictured at a stop at the Roundabout Diner, April 27, 2011, in Portsmouth, N.H. Cohen is prosecutors’ most central witness in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial. But Trump’s fixer-turned-foe is also as challenging a star witness as they come. The now-disbarred lawyer has a tortured history with Trump. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

FILE - People lay hands in prayer on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, right, as attorney Michael Cohen looks on during a visit to the Pastors Leadership Conference at New Spirit Revival Center, Sept. 21, 2016, in Cleveland. Cohen is prosecutors’ most central witness in former President Trump's hush money trial. But Trump’s fixer-turned-foe is also as challenging a star witness as they come. The now-disbarred lawyer has a tortured history with Trump. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File)

Trump trial arrives at a pivotal moment: Star witness Michael Cohen is poised to take the stand

FILE - Michael Cohen, former attorney to Donald Trump, leaves the District Attorney's office in New York, March 13, 2023. Cohen is prosecutors' most central witness in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial. But Trump's fixer-turned-foe is also as challenging a star witness as they come. The now-disbarred lawyer has a tortured history with Trump. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)

Trump trial arrives at a pivotal moment: Star witness Michael Cohen is poised to take the stand