Paris Saint-Germain have been the most thrilling outfit in Europe over the last year but Luis Enrique’s side showed another side to their game as they held off Bayern Munich on Wednesday to reach a second straight Champions League final.
After their epic 5-4 victory in the first leg of their semi-final, when the attacking quality of both sides made for one of the greatest games in the competition’s history, PSG got the job done in the return at the Allianz Arena thanks to a brilliant early goal followed by a heroic rearguard action.
Ousmane Dembele scored inside three minutes after a typically devastating counter-attack, and the French champions then set about thwarting their hosts, as Bayern very nearly failed to score in a game for the first time all season.
Harry Kane did eventually equalise on the night, but his strike came too late and a 1-1 draw took PSG through 6-5 on aggregate.
“Tonight showed what type of team we are,” Luis Enrique told broadcaster Canal Plus.
“We showed our maturity, being able to defend as well as attack. As a coach it was a pleasure to see that performance.”
“We can’t always win with magic or extraordinary play. Today we had to defend a lot but we defended very well,” added Desire Doue.
The display of defensive solidarity and solidity was led by the immense Willian Pacho, the Ecuadorian who remarkably won all six of his duels on the pitch.
Warren Zaire-Emery was magnificent filling in at right-back in the absence of the injured Achraf Hakimi, and the 20-year-old France midfielder has been perhaps PSG’s player of the season.
He has played more minutes than anyone else for them, recovering from a difficult last campaign personally when he was only a bit-part member of the side that won the Champions League.
His work-rate, energy and consistency have helped PSG overcome the fitness issues which threatened to derail them after an exhausting last campaign when a run to July’s Club World Cup final meant they only had a three-week off-season.
The Parisians had been chasing glory in Europe’s elite club competition since the transformative Qatari takeover of 2011 but kept falling short, sometimes in humiliating fashion, before winning the trophy for the first time last year.
Now they are the first team since Liverpool in 2019 to reach back-to-back finals in the competition, and a win over Arsenal in Budapest on May 30 will see them become only the second side in the Champions League era to retain the title.
The only team to have achieved that feat so far remains Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid of 2016 to 2018.
Luis Enrique can now join Zidane, Pep Guardiola, Bob Paisley and Carlo Ancelotti in winning the European Cup as a coach for the third time –- he also won it with Barcelona in 2015.
“We have a magnificent young team in which everyone gives everything, and we have the best coach in the world,” said PSG president Nasser al-Khelaifi with the beaming smile of a man who probably cannot believe just how successfully the club have moved on from the era of Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Lionel Messi.
Luis Enrique has transformed Dembele into a Ballon d’Or-winning centre-forward and has helped make the thrilling Khvicha Kvaratskhelia the best player in this season’s Champions League.
The Georgian set up Dembele’s goal in Munich with a stunning breakaway and has been the most decisive player in the knockout stages with seven goals and three assists in eight games.
It looked at one point as if the decision to not properly strengthen the squad after last season might backfire, especially as goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma was sold to Manchester City and not adequately replaced.
But nine of the starters from last season’s 5-0 final demolition of Inter Milan in Munich started in the same stadium on Wednesday, with the only absentees being the departed Donnarumma and the injured Hakimi.
PSG have notably now won all seven knockout ties under Luis Enrique when playing at home in the first leg, and they can now look forward to a third Champions League final in seven seasons.
They will be favourites against Arsenal, especially as they have now made it clear that they can mix things up.
“This PSG side is terrifying because they have shown they can hold on when things are difficult, and defend well,” said Samir Nasri, the ex-Arsenal star turned star pundit on French television. – AFP.
