On a special night like only the Champions League, the noise of the yellow wall of the Signal Iduna Park was going to be the setting for a resounding awakening. The victory had its main color from a right wing where Jadon Sancho wanted to remember old times like never before this season. Beyond the fact that the final result is still at the expense of what both say in the Parc des Princes, the value of having managed to recover the best version of English is a prize beyond the results in this 23/24.
A name that began the season under Erik Ten Hag in England, forming part of a Manchester United team that he arrived in the summer of 2021. His arrival in the Premier League seemed to be one of the key chapters in the umpteenth recovery attempt by the Old Trafford entity, which intended for the winger to be a key piece in the Red Devils’ plans, after managing to contrast clearly in the German Bundesliga. as one of the most promising young people in Europe.
“We believe that the next step in his evolution is to train every day with us, like Phil Foden and Brahim Díaz. But he decided, or his agent, that they did not want to sign the contract”
Pep Guardiola Manager of Manchester City
His technical, electric, intelligent, skilful and fast football made everyone fall in love with a Borussia Dortmund team that he arrived at when he was just 17 years old, from the ‘skyblue’ side of Manchester. A painful step for a Guardiola who already had his quality to decorate his team in the future, resembling him with the talent of Foden, who today has already established himself in the team. “I can only wish him luck because he is a great talent and will be very good for England,” he commented after his departure.
Sancho’s goal was to start succeeding in the Bundesliga. In Dortmund he had the resounding success of convincing each of the coaches he was going to meet. His quality, indisputable, helped him play almost from his arrival, with the first team. First with Stöger, then with Favre and later with Terzic (who also manages the Englishman today), his time at Borussia Dortmund was premature and convincing, with absurd figures for a player who had not yet turned 20 years old.
«Don’t touch Sancho for me»
On this Champions League night, Sancho’s quality reawakened, years after his time in Manchester, this time in the ‘red’ part. Jorge Valdano himself, during the broadcast, asked that the figure of the Englishman not be touched at allwho from that right wing always managed to connect with danger to hurt a lost PSG, with great intensity in their pressure, but without enough reading to stop the balls that, one by one, were looking for Sancho’s boots to tell them to do.
12 – Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho has completed 12 dribbles tonight against PSG, the most by a player in a Champions League semi-final since Barcelona’s Lionel Messi in April 2008 against Manchester United (16). Artist. #BVBPSG @Sanchooo10 pic.twitter.com/dFQNg58COt
— OptaFranz (@OptaFranz) May 1, 2024
With the speed of days gone by, Jadon Sancho seemed to forget the time outside Signal Iduna Park and the yellow wall seemed to accompany his plays with noise, so that the Englishman felt at home. With the ’10’ on his back instead of the ‘7’ from his first time in the German team, but with the shirt from then and a coach who trusts him as he did in 20/21, Jadon Sancho became the most important protagonist of a tie that has not yet ended but that has managed to connect two eras with an intermission that the footballer seems to have forgotten.
Mess with Ten Hag at United… that makes him recover his level
“I will continue fighting no matter what happens,” he commented just three months before his return, in January 2024, to the Dortmund discipline. The English winger was responding to what had been some harsh statements from his United coach, Ten Hag, who accused him of not having trained correctly as an excuse for leaving him out of the squad. They were the last throes of a complex relationship, before the decision to leave for Germany in the January market. In those last months of 2023, just 79 minutes of play spread over only three games played. Something unacceptable for a player who continues dreaming of the Euro Cup.
“We know that Jadon Sancho is a fantastic player, so it is not a surprise for us, that was never the problem”
Erik Ten Hag Manager of Manchester United
“Coming back depends on him,” Ten Hag said a few weeks ago from Manchester, while he sees how his team does not have clear ideas and the crisis grows and the winger shines in Dortmund. Perhaps that is why the doubt about Ten Hag’s reasons for leaving him out continues to exist, even more so seeing what the winger is capable of in such a competitive context against a rival like PSG and even more so in the Champions League semi-finals.a competition in which, as was recently confirmed, United will not participate next season.
After leaving Old Trafford, Sancho’s numbers once again resemble those of an attacking player who has mastered his craft. He has now made 14 starts in 16 games played under Terzic in Dortmund, with three goals scored despite not being a finishing specialist. With Adeyemi or Malen on the opposite wing and with Füllkrug as a reference, Jadon Sancho has managed to create some luxury wickers so that Terzic can trust in the offensive capacity of his Dortmund.
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Champions League
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Borussia Dortmund
