Few people will have bigger headaches this weekend than defenders Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain.
How can you prevent Robert Lewandowski – or “LewanGOALski,” as Thomas Mueller called him by joking his father – and Serge Gnabry? How do you prevent Neymar, Kylian Mbappé, Mauro Icardi and Angel Di Maria?
These are issues that no Champions League team has answered this way this season.
Polish striker Lewandowski enjoys one of the most productive single seasons in festival history and has only two goals Cristiano Ronaldo’s record of 17 goals in a single campaign.
Alongside him is Gnabry, who moved from Arsenal and West Brom to one of Europe’s offensive talents. The duo is now the prolific top in a season without getting married in Champions League history.
Two more goals for Gnabry and Lewandowski in the semi-final 3-0 against Lyon brought their combined total to 24 for the competition this season, surpassing the past record of 23 achieved by Real Madrid duo Ronaldo and Gareth Bale in 2013-14.
READ: Why is it now or in the search for Neymar for European glory?
LEA: Paris Saint-Germain triumphs in first Champions League final with the demolition of RB Leipzig
Despite Bayern’s national dominance in Germany, he has now won 8 consecutive Bundesliga titles, good luck in Europe has been difficult since his last Champions League triumph in 2013.
Pep Guardiola hired just after that victory, but failed to reflect his Good European fortune in Barcelona, falling to the semi-finals in each of his three seasons in Bavaria.
Overcoming the last 4 had a kind of voodoo for Bayern Munich; In the run-up to Lyon, the Germans had lost in each of their last four Champions League semi-finals.
With Wednesday’s final beep, you may see what it meant to succeed in the latest for this player organization, many of whom have experienced seven years of sadness combined in the Champions League.
“It’s special that we’ve still completed today,” goalkeeper Manuel Neuer said after the semi-final win over Lyon.
“You may see that we had to put everything into it. Now we’re ahead of the last opponent of the PSG. We fight and work for him for so long and we need to win the latter.”
Fortunately for PSG, it is one of the few clubs in Europe that fits, or even surpasses, the offensive talent of Bayern Munich.
Since Qatar Sports Investments bought the Paris club in 2011, winning the Champions League is an obsession. More than $1 billion has been spent on the gaming team, with ambitions to propel PSG into a position among the continent’s elite clubs.
Paris will feel that way, even without a Champions League trophy to show their efforts. If the feeling is reciprocal around the most sensible table in the rest of Europe, it is a completely different matter.
The PSG is threatening to alter the order that has been in place for some time, but so far it has controlled to yield dramatically when it is about to do so.
For all the millions spent and the superstar talents purchased, this is not enough to save you two amazing capitulations; one behind Barcelona in 2017 and Manchester United’s backing last season.
The reminiscence of that exit from the Champions League opposed to Barcelona, in which PSG ceded a 4-0 lead in the first leg, was considered so painful that many said that PSG would never beat it.
But now it’s here, 90 minutes from the trophy that Qatar’s owners need most.
“We’re here to make history, we’ve already taken a big step and we’ve got one left,” said Marquinhos, who scored goals in the quarter-finals and semi-finals.
“It was a functionality [back to THE RB Leipzig], we controlled it from the beginning to the end. Now we have to do it again in the final.
The Brazilian Zaguero has a cornerstone in the revival of PSG’s fortune since that evening in front of Barcelona.
Coach Thomas Tuchel is also known and has made this mentally fragile team the top defensive team in the Champions League this season.
It is true that in Atalanta and RB Leipzig, impressive and cohesive units, but without star players Josip Ilicic and Timo Werner, the PSG may have asked for a less difficult direction for Sunday’s final.
But opposed to Atalanta and in the early rounds opposed to Borussia Dortmund, the PSG showed the kind of determination and intellectual strength that were so lacking in its European campaigns so far.
The camaraderie, inside and outside the box, has also improved; Rumors of a desperately distressed Neymar of a return to Barcelona seem like a remote memory, while the Brazilian’s chemistry with her amazing husband Mbappé is more fatal than ever.
The PSG team as a whole has given the impression of being more balanced in the Champions League this season and victories over Atalanta and Leipzig will leave a long way to heal the intellectual scars inflicted through Lionel Messi and his teammates. Camp Nou.
“The atmosphere [on the team] is great,” Marquinhos said. “On the field, it makes a difference when you lose the ball. There’s someone who sacrifices for each other. Everyone defends, helps, lends a hand, everyone has the same goal.
“It’s not just at the right times, because we’ve also had some tough times when we’ve had to stay together. The time has come and we will have to maintain this unit. Defense has been our strength this year. I think a team has to protect itself well and be forged from behind to get smart results.
“We have some wonderful players on the attack, but we also have a forged defense and that makes all the difference. We know we’re going to score, we know our qualities at the forefront, so if we can keep things tight at the back, that’s crucial, and we also have to do it in the last instance.”
A victory against Bayern Munich, for their sixth European Cup and, no doubt, among the elite established in Europe, would, in spite of everything, bring the validation sought by PSG and its owners.
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