May 8 – Dortmund will return to Wembley and the Champions League final after a dramatic 1-0 second-leg victory against Paris Saint-Germain (2-0 on aggregate), raising the prospect of an all-German final in London once again.
A single goal from veteran defender Matt Hummels, who also featured for Dortmund in the 2013 Champions League final against Bayern Munich at Wembley, was enough for the Westfalen club to clinch a ticket to the European showpiece event on a night that the ball simply wouldn’t go for the French.
PSG hit the woodwork six times in the tie and four times on Tuesday in an all-mighty second-half onslaught. They were left to lament what could have been, confirming their status as perennial losers in the final rounds of the competition.
Since Qatar Sports Investment took over the club in 2011, PSG have been driven by a burning desire to win Europe’s most prestigious club competition, but instead, they have always fallen short, sometimes in agonising fashion. The Parisians reached the final in 2020, but lost to Bayern Munich.
On Tuesday, PSG got off to a slow start. The Germans were disciplined in the first half and restricted PSG to a limited number of chances with Ousmane Dembele firing high and wide from a tight angle and surprise starter Gonçalo Ramos being all too nonchalant in front of the goalmouth.
Kylian Mbappé frequently caused havoc in the German backline, but there was no end product for the French. At the other end, Karim Adeyemi accelerated only to see his attempt parried by Gianluigi Donnarumma’s one-handed save.
Dortmund took their 1-0 aggregate lead heading into the second half with a proud record of stopping the opposition from scoring a first-half goal in 10 of their 12 games, more than any other in this season’s Champions League.
Warren Zaïre-Emery should have opened the score immediately after the restart but inexplicably volleyed against the post. Hummels, with a man-of-the-match performance alongside his fellow central defender Nico Schlotterbeck, was more secure from close range when both Marquinhos and Lucas Beraldo lost sight of him in the 50th minute and headed in what would prove to be the winning goal.
It prompted a furious response from the Parisians, who had 31 attempts on the night, but just five on target. Admittedly, four attempts hit the woodwork – Zaïre-Emery, Vitinha, Mbappé and Nuno Mendes – as PSG threw everything at their opponents. But there was to be no goal or late comeback.
Next month, Dortmund will play their third Champions League final. In 1997, they defeated Juventus 3-1 with Karl-Heinz Riedle and Lars Ricken on the score sheet. In 2013, at Wembley Stadium, Bayern Munich proved to be too strong.
In June, they return to London and might meet again their German arch-rivals, who on Wednesday, travel to the Santiago Bernabeu to take on the ultimate masters of the European Cup, Real Madrid.
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