PARIS (Sundiata Post) – Borussia Dortmund defeated Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) 1-0 in their Champions League semi-final second leg on Tuesday night, advancing 2-0 on aggregate to next month’s final at Wembley Stadium in London.
Mats Hummels headed in the only goal for Dortmund to secure a place in the final.
Hummels struck five minutes into the second half at the Parc des Princes and PSG were unable to muster a response, the home side all out of luck as they hit the woodwork four times in total.
Dortmund, who sit fifth in the German Bundesliga, were never expected to go so far and will be underdogs in the June 1 showpiece regardless of whether they face their old rivals Bayern Munich or Real Madrid, who meet on Wednesday.
It will be their first final since 2013 when, remarkably, the match was also played at Wembley and Jurgen Klopp’s Dortmund lost to Bayern.
Hummels played in that final and here, 11 years later, he was the hero as Dortmund built on the advantage given to them by Niclas Fuellkrug’s goal in the first leg.
Dortmund manager Edin Terzic said after the game: “It’ll take us a bit of time to realise that, but we’re looking forward to it extremely.
“We did it somehow, making it to London.”
The story of this semi-final, however, is as much about PSG’s failure in another crunch knockout tie in the competition.
They have still never won the trophy despite all the money invested by their Qatari owners since the 2011 takeover, and there will be no dream send-off for Kylian Mbappe.
Mbappe will leave when his contract expires after this season and had been hoping to play his last game for the club in the June 1 final.
Instead PSG will be left to reflect on how they failed to get their hands on the biggest trophy of all during Mbappe’s seven years at his hometown team.
PSG captain Marquinhos said: “We were not clinical enough. They scored two goals, one from a corner and one from a long ball. We created lots more chances, many more than them, but we didn’t take them.
“We got so close and we wanted to get to the final. But we had to win tonight and be more clinical, and we were not.”
PSG’s last two semi-final appearances both came during the pandemic, meaning this was the first time they had hosted a match at this stage of a European competition with fans in 29 years, since losing to AC Milan in 1995.
