Paris Saint-Germain fails to win the Champions League. The club stranded in the eighth finals on Wednesday evening after a defeat at Bayern Munich (2-0), which also won in France three weeks ago (1-0).
For example, the final victory in the royal class of European club football is not for sale for the very wealthy owners from Qatar, who took over the club from Paris twelve years ago. There is no shortage of stars in the selection of the champions of France. But football remains a team sport and the most valued individualists rarely form the best collective.
PSG kicked off with Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi, the stars of the World Cup final in Qatar. Neymar was missing from the Allianz Arena due to an ankle injury. Bayern did everything they could to let Mbappé and Messi touch the ball as little as possible. That worked out pretty well, although the home team didn’t have much time to attack before half time.
The best chances were initially for PSG. But Mbappé overlooked his detached teammate Achraf Hakimi and Messi also failed to fumble the ball into the goal, after a nice action from his lightning-fast teammate Nuno Mendes. Vitinha thought he could score, but Matthijs de Ligt turned his effort just before the goal line.
De Ligt celebrated his successful sliding as a goal. He was the only Dutchman on the field. Ryan Gravenberch, Daley Blind and Noussair Mazraoui stayed on the bench with the home team, who only became dangerous once before the break. Jamal Musiala decided a nice action with a hard shot, but encountered Gianluigi Donnarumma, the goalkeeper of PSG.
The visitors defended after the break with El Chadaille Bitshiabu. The only 17-year-old Frenchman replaced the injured Nordi Mukiele, who in turn relieved the injured Marquinhos after more than half an hour. Bayern seemed to benefit from the changes in the French defense in the opening phase of the second half. But the Italian referee Daniele Orsato ruled that Thomas Müller was annoyingly offside when Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting headed in.
Choupo-Moting was allowed to cheer in the 62nd minute. He easily hit the target after midfielder Marco Verratti had lost the ball. Mbappé and Messi remained fairly invisible while PSG tried to launch a final offensive in the last half hour. Defender Sergio Ramos caused the home team’s defense the most problems with two dangerous headers. Serge Gnabry broke PSG’s last bit of resistance in the 89th minute. He was allowed to fill in, just like valued players such as Leroy Sané, Sadio Mané and João Cancelo.
Source: ANP
