Erratic in attack, with five very clear chances wasted in the second half, Paris Saint-Germain wasted Mbappé’s few sparks and succumbed to the success of Borussia Dortmund, who won 1-0 with a goal from Füllkrug with which they took the lead in semi-finals that will be decided in the Parc des Princes in Paris.
PSG paid dearly for their ineffectiveness against Kobel’s goal and their timorous exit onto the field. He started badly and reacted well, but he missed the target with two shots at the post from Mbappé and Achraf, with a very clear header from Fabián Ruiz and with a couple of shots from Dembélé that went into limbo.
Now, PSG, a priori favorite in the tie, will have to overcome the tie in front of their fans if they do not want to throw away their umpteenth attempt to enter their first Champions League in their showcases. Dortmund, meanwhile, rubs its hands with the feat: no one expected it in the final at the beginning of the tournament.
And the pressure from the ‘Yellow Wall’ infected Edin Terzic’s men, who throughout the competition have had a priceless number twelve player. And, against Paris Saint-Germain, aware that a final was at stake, he did his best to be even more fiery than usual. With that attitude, his players took to the Signal Iduna Park lawn practically with a goal advantage.
Infected by the cauldron that their stadium became, the same eleven men who finished off Atlético de Madrid, began the clash with suffocating pressure on Luis Enrique’s team, which also relied on the same lineup that attacked Montjuic to eliminate to Barcelona in the quarterfinals.
Both coaches thought about “what works, don’t touch it” and did not hesitate to bring out the same 22 names that made a leap in quality towards the semifinals. But, at least in the first half, and except for a small stretch of a quarter of an hour, Dortmund’s eleven were much more intense, vertical and incisive.
Almost nothing worked for PSG. He had to bail water almost constantly. Only Dembélé, with two timid attempts from outside the area, appeared near the goal defended by Kobel. Mbappé, with the magnifying glass on him, was completely missing in action. And Vitinha, the metronome of the Parisian team, could only direct the game to his liking during fifteen minutes of release in which Dortmund could not keep up.
Dortmund, meanwhile, scared with a clear shot from Sabitzer, who was met with a good intervention from Donnarumma in a one-on-one match after a quarter of an hour. Then he would have another very clear one, on the stroke of half-time with a point-blank shot from the penalty spot that the Italian goalkeeper saved with a spectacular stretch.
At that moment, Dortmund was already winning 1-0 because Füllkrug did not fail in the German team’s clearest opportunity. The defense, a headache this season for Luis Enrique, failed in a long pass from Schlotterbeck, who took the back of Marquinhos and Lucas Hernández to leave the German forward alone against Donnarumma. A strong left footed shot resolved the one-on-one situation and Dortmund took a well-deserved reward at half-time.
Luis Enrique had a quarter of an hour to change the game. His players urgently needed to change. The tie was in danger and a 180-degree turn had to be made, which came after the restart. PSG changed its attitude and jumped onto the pitch angry with the necessary arrests that it did not make at the beginning.
As a result, PSG’s best moments came. Finally Mbappé appeared, leaving just a couple of flashes that could have been enough to equalize the score. One of them, a trademark of the house, ended up crashing into the post of the goal defended by Kobel. The rebound was collected by Achraf Hakimi and again the wood repelled the tie.
Afterwards, it was Fabián Ruiz who did not take advantage of a great pass from Marquinhos. The Brazilian central defender left a perfect ball to the Spanish midfielder, who did not know how to finish the play with a faulty header when he had everything to score.
With that occasion, PSG’s reaction ended. Dortmund regained control of the game with half an hour left in the game. The figures of Sancho and Ayedemi swelled forward and backward. The sacrifice of both of them was immense and they managed to do two very interesting things: balance and unbalance.
And as a result of the insistence of both, two clear options arrived that could give PSG the finishing touch. First, Sancho arrived like a howitzer to the baseline, gave a pass of death at mid-height and Füllkrug sent the ball over the crossbar. Then, a cross from Ayedemi from the left ended up on the head of Füllkrug, who lost his balance with a push from Nuno Mendes that the referee neither whistled nor reviewed the VAR.
But PSG still had one last bullet left. Mbappé charged it, with a subtle pass inside the area that filtered to Dembélé, who found a saving hand from Kobe. Luis Enrique, desperate on the wing, could not believe that none of his chances would hit the net of Dortmund’s goal.
In the end, that was PSG’s sin, the lack of success in the most important procedure in football: the goal. But Mbappé, the man with the most stripes of the two squads, will still have a chance to leave Paris with the ‘Champions’ under his arm. He will have to take down a team that took advantage of its rival’s poor first half, its success against Donnarumma’s goal and a shot by Füllkrug that resolved a match that allows Dortmund to dream of the third final in its history.
#Mbappé #Paris
