Brick by brick they rebuilt their Yellow Wall here at the Parc des Princes, and come the end it was just too mighty for Paris Saint-Germain and Kylian Mbappe to scale. For Borussia Dortmund, the yellow brick road now leads to London.
It was fitting that site foreman Mats Hummels scored the goal that takes them to Wembley for next month’s final. Not only was the veteran centre-back the best player over both legs – Jadon Sancho was a close second – but he was part of the Dortmund team beaten in the final at the same stadium in 2013. Bayern Munich, their conquerors then, could yet join them for a rematch.
But the showdown we had expected – Mbappe versus Real Madrid, the club he will join this summer – will not happen, and nor did it ever look likely on a night when a dull and insipid PSG were out-shone by their own fans and Edin Terzic’s brave and brilliant Dortmund. We got the right winners, that is for sure.
‘Heart and cries’ screamed the front page of L’Equipe in a rallying call ahead of the game. They got the cries, at least in the form of Parisian tears. As for the heart, well that belonged to Dortmund.
Hummels and sidekick Nico Schlotterbeck pocketed Mbappe in the first leg and they did the same again. The fairytale ending for which he had hoped descended into a nightmare for the striker. Even when he did escape his captors late on, a scuffed shot was flipped onto the crossbar by Dortmund keeper Gregor Kobel.
Borussia Dortmund have qualified for the Champions League final after beating PSG
Dortmund’s veteran defender Mats Hummels scored the game’s only goal in the second-leg 1-0 win
Mbappe looked to the skies, and it will be there that he soon departs for Madrid. His legacy will be nights like this – so near and so far after seven years of trying, and failing, to return the one crown PSG’s Qatari owners crave.
The club’s ultras, who had worked through the night for three weeks designing a quite magnificent tifo depicting each of their team, made a plea in the hours before kick-off for all supporters to bring ‘fire’ to the stadium. Having been burnt by the atmosphere in Dortmund last week, when their players managed to freeze amid a cauldron, this was their turn to inspire their own.
It would be down to those on the pitch to reverse the scoreline, but at least those off it restored parity in the battle of the terraces. Last week’s Yellow Wall was matched here by a sea of blue and red, the tide mark rising to the very last brick of what we had seen at the Westfalenstadion. It was quite a sight, and sound.
Come kick-off, a spring day had made way for a wild night. The wind that whipped through the claustrophobic side streets leading to Parc des Princes carried with it songs of London and a first Champions League crown, supported by a backing band of fireworks and flares.
PSG may have appeared at this stage twice in the past four seasons, but those games were played behind closed doors, here and in Portugal. This, then, was the first time the locals had experienced such an occasion in 29 years.
Not that there were any nerves. Enrique was typically bullish beforehand. ‘On va a gagner,’ he declared. ‘It’s the only phrase I know in French – we are going to win.’
Emmanuel Petit, meanwhile, said he could not see how Dortmund could qualify if PSG showed an improvement on the first leg. In truth, PSG got away with one in Germany, and a 1-0 defeat represented something of a victory.
Petit’s final words of wisdom were this: ’If I am a Parisian, from the first second I would grab them by the throat.’ It was shins and ankles they went for instead, and PSG started with a ferocity absent six days previous.
Mbappe took seven minutes to find the target with a sweet volley gobbled by Kobel. It took him nearly an hour to do so in Dortmund. But thereafter the home intensity faded. Mbappe’s touches were heavy and PSG were light on ideas.
Dortmund’s Karim Adeyemi came closest to scoring before half-time when, from an incisive break that was too fast for the hosts, his shot was clawed to safety by Gianluigi Donnarumma.
But the Italian was rendered helpless five minutes into the second half when Hummels, unmarked, met Julian Brandt’s wicked corner to head in from six yards. Seconds earlier, PSG’s Warren Zaire-Emery had volleyed against the post when he should have scored from close range and, on the hour, Nuno Mendes cracked the same upright from distance.
Mbappe’s shot then clipped the bar and Vitinha did so too, this time from 30 yards. No matter what they tried, the Wall held firm. Next stop, London.
