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A dominant feature allowed France’s eternal champions to triumph for the first time in the last of Europe’s largest club festival.
By Rory Smith and Andrew Das
Right now
Paris Saint-Germain qualified for the last of the Champions League for the first time. Marquinhos, Angel Di Maria and Juan Bernat scored in a complete 3-0 win over RB Leipzig.
FULL-TIME
The dicks are two minutes of time off and P.S.G. is until the final. Marquinhos and Angel Di Maria’s goals in the first half and a third by Juan Bernat at the start of the moment did.
83 ‘
Marco Verratti and Julian Draxler come to see the last few minutes. Departure from Ander Herrera and Leandro Paredes.
Three minutes later, Mbappé, with a sneaky wink, and Di Maria, less controversial, les. Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and Pablo Sarabia arrive.
In defense of Thomas Tuchel, there is nothing worth the conversion right now. What a day as CEO. He probably sailed at full speed in his first Champions League final.
64 ‘
RB Leipzig made two more submarines: Marcel Halstenberg replaced Konrad Laimer and American midfielder Tyler Adams replaced Kevin Kampl. That gives young Adams, who had the winner in the quarter-finals, a little more pleasure in a great game than in any last roll. Bernat’s purpose led him to the knife.
Adams is the American player’s time to play a Champions League semi-final; DaMarcus Beasley, the young defender who was then young, played for PSV Eindhoven against Milan in 2005.
56 ‘
Juan Bernat gets this one after a comedy of errors of the Leipzig defense.
Di Maria arrived early, but Gulasci filled his shot. Mukiele, his right-back, looked well placed to dispel the danger, but as he headed toward the corner under Ander Herrera’s pressure, he made the decision to fall for check out and win a loose kick. This helps, however, if you’ve been hit, what Mukiele hasn’t been. Kuipers let the game go on, and Mukiele aggravated his mistake by betting on a Bernat alert in play by taking a step back from the game in the corner.
He returned and Bernat buried his head. VAR showed the goal.
3-0. Game over?
46 ‘
It is worth noting that P.S.G. Was it the maximum rested – or was it the ultimate out of practice? – team in the Lisbon field after the French league, the only one among the European leagues of maximum productivity, to finish its season early, in March, because of the coronavirus pandemic. That made P.S.G. the champion again, but also left his players in no form of play and with the maximum chance of being harmed if pushed. It is imaginable that Thomas Tuchel, if he believes this attack is already underway, will seek to rest some players before Sunday’s final.
Middle
It is hard not to think that Leipzig was complicit in his own disappearance: Peter Gulacsi’s mistake for the purpose of the PSG moment (probably decisive) only the last and most significant incident in which Julian Nagelsmann’s team neglected with the ball. All high-pressure groups have a detail of chaos, that’s what makes everything perfect, but on a level like this, as opposed to the war-ed parts of this quality, it has to be exploited much more effectively.
But that distracts attention from the quality of P.S.G., and especially of its first three, (with a nod to the glorious encouragement of Leandro Paredes in midfield).
Neymar may have forgotten how to shoot, but has produced 135 of his most productive minutes in the Champions League for a few years in the last week; the first half here, as well as the quarter-final win against Atalanta, is at a point that has not been consistently produced in this festival since Barcelona’s 6-1 victory over its current patrons in 2017. Kylian Mbappé is full of threat, as always, a player who turns out to have its time; Angel Di Maria is the most productive complement of both. The understanding they have forged among them, and which was fed through Thomas Tuchel, is glorious in sight and is absolutely unstoppable.
That’s, as you can imagine, what P.S.G. I had in mind when he bought Neymar and Mbappé three years ago. – RORY SMITH
42 ‘
P.S.G. It adds to its merit a few minutes before the break when a redirected pass (what a touch of Neymar to the race!) lands at Di Maria’s feet at the mouth of the goals. He controls it and pulls it in its frame, and in front of the doorman, with his left foot. P.S.G. carried, 2-0.
Gulasci is to blame only himself. He hit a horrible clearing directly at Paredes, and pulled him out of there. One touch to control, then another to feed Neymar. Neymar’s touch, a smart rear wheel in the race to bring him down, was the masterstroke there. All Di Maria had to do was knock him down and lock him up.
P.S.G. leads, 2-0, at halftime.
35 feet
Leipzig’s concentration in the youth is the club’s hallmark, and that’s what helped them climb the ladder so temporarily in Germany: Yussuf Poulsen, tonight’s captain, has been with Leipzig since he was in the third division.
But I wonder if, when a team founded almost exclusively on young people begins to flourish, this technique has an herbal restriction factor. Leipzig is now a goal in the champions of the Champions League, probably the most important match its players have played. Among his boxers, only Kevin Kampl, the full-life midboxer who has a kind of unofficial red Bull football school mascot, and who looks like a honey badger, is over 26 years old.
That’s not to say that Leipzig deserved to have done things differently, look at where the club is and how quickly it was there, but you wonder who, exactly, will lead the team, who would possibly not be surprised at the Arrange who will be capable of their emotions. Football has developed a tendency to despise delight; where players were previously thought to be over 32 or 33, it now feels like they were 28 or 29. Sometimes, however, a little delight is not a bad thing. – RORY SMITH
33 ‘
No one expected it, let Gulasci set out. But Neymar takes a hit after P.S.G. wins a foul on the right wing, and it almost works. His shot surprised the goalkeeper, but by the time in this half, the right purpose pole rang.
If I like it, it came here out of nowhere, it’s because it’s fixed
“Only Neymar, ” says the announcer gratefully. “Only Neymar”.
17 ‘
Ander Herrera leaves Mbappé with a sharp pass just outside the right post, but the angle is too narrow for a punchline. But each and every P.S.G. Key. The player has had a chance now, all eyes transparent and open, and Leipzig is lucky that he is only 1-0. They break down at first, and with this first line it can be temporarily uncontrollable.
13 ‘
A loose kick won from the left after a couple of corners leads to the first purpose of the game. Neymar is the supplier, wrapping a center at the mouth of purpose, where Marquinhos, his Brazilian compatriot, arrives first and passes to Gulasci on purpose. Unfortunate defence through RB Leipzig there; There’s no explanation for why letting a little guy split your defense to win a head.
6 ‘
Mbappé throws his spouse with a knife pass, but Neymar, alone, throws him over the right post with the outside of his right foot. The nuances of his early failure were opposed to the Atalanta there. And not a smart memory if you’re a CEO. Fan.
P.S.G. He then put the ball at the bottom of the net, Bjorn Kuipers, the Dutch referee, had stopped the game. No target.
5 feet
P.S.G. he tried to propel Neymar Dayot Upamecano early, while Leipzig worked a little more methodically: cutting passes, running from the outside in, then a quick center or two. No danger at first. But both groups seek to exploit their strengths and avoid problems.
If this helps you visualize while you read today: P.S.G. It is wearing blue shirts and blue shorts, and RB Leipzig is wearing white shirts and red shorts.
It’s tempting to split the Champions League semi-finals in half: tonight’s new cash reunion and tomorrow’s clash among the majors. Many could place in this kind of allegory of a war for the soul of football. But if it is true that RB Leipzig and Paris Saint-Germain do not exist, in their current form, just to play football, what they deserve to make it a desirable game are the differences in how this has manifested itself.
P.S.G. it is the ultimate arribistic superpower: a front line built with superstard as a base material, founded on Neymar’s ingenuity, Kylian Mbappé’s devastating power, and the predatory instincts of stars like Mauro Icardi and others in reserve. It is a team designed to surprise and impress, to blind the parties in conflict with their skill and to some extent their glamour. The rest of the team is a little more to do and repair: it doesn’t really lack quality, but it can be difficult, sometimes, that we have an idea of as much who plays on the left and who plays. from the front. Nor was there a convincing philosophy: Thomas Tuchel, his coach, deserves to create a team from the fabrics they gave him.
Julian Nagelsmann, Tuchel’s former protégé, is different. Leipzig built a club from scratch with a singular vision, the young athletes bet on maximum sensible football and recruited a team and a coach to match. The source of their money would possibly be unpleasant for some; how you spent it, it’s hard to condemn. Leipzig has now become the style of how the maximum of Europe’s maximum cell football groups would like to behave, if they only had one drink of power.
That’s the context of the game: if brilliant concepts (financed by new money) can defeat brilliant talents (funded with new funds). It is, in a sense, an assembly between two other conceptions of long-term football.
Julian Nagelsmann stood firm, sending the same and that was a quarter-final victory over Atletico Madrid.
Leipzig Team:
Gulacsi, Klostermann, Upamecano, Mukiele, Laimer, Sabitzer, Kampl, Angelino, Nkunku, Olmo, Poulsen
The biggest replacement for Thomas Tuchel of P.S.G. Front, where Kylian Mbappé, whose participation in this festival was once doubtful by an ankle injury suffered in France, begins. He was the most important thing in the difference in the quarter-final victory over Atalanta, a breath of new air (and danger) in the middle of the moment. Today, it will bring that from the beginning.
Also keep an eye out for Angel Di Maria. Initial PSG Training:
Rico, Kehrer, Silva, Kimpembe, Bernat, Paredes, Marquinhos, Herrera, Di Maria, Mbappé, Neymar.
Barcelona, who was defeated by Bayern Munich last week, 8-2, on one of the most humiliating days in the club’s recent history, is being cleaned up this week.
The simplest call came quickly: Quique Setién is already absent as a manager, and Ronald Koeman, the former Dutch player who helped the club win his first Champions League, is at stake. Koeman’s first task will be to catch Lionel Messi with both hands and grab him.
Today it’s sporting director Eric Abidal who’s unemployed. But Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, a guy who Barcelona fans blame for the lousy condition of the existing team, told the club’s TV channel that he would not leave his post.
“I chose to resign in favor of the club,” he said.
Spoiler: This probably wouldn’t happen well.
Today’s winner at Benfica’s East-Dio da Luz will face the winner of Wednesday’s semi-final between Bayern Munich and Lyon at Sporting’s José Alvalade. The maximum will be positioned on Sunday at Benfica.
Unlike other years, the entire champions League knockout round, starting with the quarter-finals, is played in Lisbon, where organizers quarantine, control and control each and every team movement. Rory Smith and Tariq Panja wrote about how they gave us here and the rules that each and every one respects to end the tournament.
The ultimate spark of laughter in this story is this: the shaped ball used today, and in each and every setting, is published in Istanbul 2020. This is the original site of the final. (Turkey will now get the game next spring, if the pandemic allows it).
Paris St.-Germain did not fail. In front of Atalanta, the Italian upstart whose Champions League career had been a ray of hope in his hometown marked by coronavirus, P.S.G. they gave up early, squandered a handful of opportunities to match and needed two goals in the final minutes to achieve victory. Marquinhos was given the first, in the 90th minute, and Neymar and Kylian Mbappé combined brilliantly to prepare Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting for the second.
RB Leipzig reserved their position in the semi-finals in an equally dramatic way, with the same score of 2-1. His triumph over Atletico Madrid came from an American substitute, Tyler Adams, who scored with a shot deflected from afar in the 88th minute.
Their immediate rise in the European football elite is more productive represented through this: the groups have never played a competitive match before today.
Neither team has ever reached the top flight of the Champions League. One of them will be there when they go to bed tonight.
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