Bayern Munich’s aristocrats beat the new Paris Saint-Germain to win their six Champions League titles last night, and show that German football has been the real superstar of European football this season.
The last match of the longest season ended with the victory of the Bundesliga champions, the first major league to return from confinement.
Qatar-owned PSG sent the world’s top two players to Neymar and Kylian Mbappé, but neither lost golden opportunities on the big occasion.
And instead, it was Frenchman Kingsley Coman who agreed in the 59th minute for Bayern’s 159th goal of a triple season. They are the first team to lift the Champions League after winning each and every match.
Hansi Flick finished the season with 21 consecutive victories and 43 goals in 11 Champions League games, adding shameful side victories over Tottenham and Chelsea.
The power of the Bavarian club, which also saw them humiliate Barcelona, nothing yet boring.
And they’re going to take Leroy Sane up their ranks this season. No young Englishman like Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham needs to play in the Bundesliga.
Manuel Neuer goes up to lift the European Cup – and it’s official!
These strangers, without spectators, are almost appropriate. There’s no danger, no surprises, those boys categorically deserved to win.
They’re the ones who finished a sharp, by the way.
Bayern are the first team in the history of this tournament to have won one hundred percent of their matches on a single crusade in the direction of winning the trophy.
With goals along the way, here’s your record in all its glory:
Group stage: 3-1 and 6-0 Red Star Belgrade, 7-2 and 3-1 Tottenham Hotspur, 3-2 and 2-0 Olympiacos
Last 16: 7-1 (cumul) Chelsea
Quarter-finals: 8-2 Barcelona
Semi-final: Lyon 3-0
End: 1-0 PSG
… and who can simply say that he doesn’t deserve it?
Bundesliga machines won the Champions League for the sixth time, matching Liverpool’s historic streak and crowning a natural dominance crusade in the competition.
Undefees in 2020, they are the ones consistent this year.
Kylian Mbappé looks dismayed that his peers don’t locate him for the umpteenth time in this final.
There’s time for one last potential chance for the World Cup hero, but Manuel Neuer makes an impressive stop!
Bayern are paralyzed to win their sixth Champions League.
PSG is now releasing its final dice, with Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and Layvin Kurzawa succeeding Angel Di Maria and Juan Bernat.
Neymar cuts a frustrated figure to the front. He hacked Robert Lewandowski into the middle line.
You have to channel that power into notation, soon.
Bayern have taken the lead since scoring a goal and PSG has lost the plot.
The Germans incorporate Philippe Coutinho and Ivan Perisic for Serge Gnabry and Kingsley Coman, precisely the type of player he would like to offer at this level in the Champions League final.
These mythical Parisian attackers are going to have to show their here.
There he is! That’s the brilliance of Bayern!
A dizzying counterattack reaches Joshua Kimmich. He reduced his way and took him on the back post, who drove the first game of the final!
What a story for the Parisian, signing for the starting eleven tonight opposite the club that did it.
There is a lack of social estrangement in Lisbon right now …
Serge Gnabry goes far behind and unnecessarily about Neymar, provoking the anger of PSG players and what I think the French call a fight.
Gnabry gets a yellow one and Parisians appease the house.
By the time of the 2019/20 season, the referee is back to normal!
Regardless of the goals, those two are already named after him this quarter.
If they do it now, they can dine there for decades.
This is the first match since the resumption in which Bayern failed to score once in the first forty-five minutes.
They were devastating ahead of the goal, hitting seven against Spurs and Chelsea (albeit in two sets) and 8 after Barcelona.
The PSG has to do it right.
Clearly, an adjustment between two of the remarkable highs of world football is goalless at halftime.
But don’t worry. Both groups have created almost as many opportunities as you’d like, and that can be anyone’s game.
I think the words “cancelled” and “retired” will appear in many of the part-time experts.
It’s desperately close for PSG!
Kylian Mbappé capitalizes on a Bayern error in the back and plays a quick one-two with Angel Di Maria but hits Manuel Neueur.
Nervous stuff!
A purpose in this game will cause absolute chaos.
Here’s a look at this ideal backup of Manuel Neuer before…
Uf! Ander Herrera has a genuine, but he deviates very close!
Luck came from a loose cross-angle kick, which Neymar closed in the area before bouncing off the Spaniard.
You’re both so capable of dialing here.
Bayern were forced to make a replacement within 25 minutes.
Niklas Sule replaces Jerome Boateng, who had doubts about the injury before the game and simply couldn’t hack it.
He seems to have had an outbreak in his knee problem.
Robert Lewandowski lifts him to the pole farthest from the … and hits him!
The leader did very well to keep him out of his frame and produce Bayern’s first-half effort.
Top statistic courtesy of Colin Millar: if Robert Lewandowski digs up tonight, he’ll have scored targets at 30, 31 and 32 this season.
Go back to football and anyone gets back in shape.
PSG has created a few more lately, adding a fabulous first genuine chance of the ultimate Champions League for Neymar.
Kylian Mbappé put it forward and threw a heavy punch from 10 yards, but Manuel Neuer makes a big stop!
I will temporarily update parodyArray sports enthusiasts..
Referees have problems with balls in shape that circulate around the line of the band, some of which are flat.
Oh UEFA. Imagine organizing a multi-million euro football match in a billion-million biosecurity bubble and forgetting to inflate the balloons well.
For an adjustment between the two softest groups on the continent, it was a strangely disjointed start.
PSG pulled the ball out of the game in 10 seconds and then conceded a reasonable kick, which Bayern did nothing.
But it was the Bavarians who saw more bullets in the first few minutes.
The latest in the Champions League has begun!
Has it sunk again?
To be fair, it will be an amazing game, so I’m sure it will be soon.
Hits abound in the tunnel of the Estadio da Luz: 85 days later, the Finalists of the Champions League are leaving for the empty stadium.
For football fans, a Champions League final in August is like Christmas in February.
It probably doesn’t make sense, but we’re going to complain.
PSG and Bayern have faced each other eight times before: the Parisians won five of those matches and the Bavarians won the other three.
The recent top game, a historic era in December 2017, saw Bayern win 3–1 in their match at the organisation level.
Robert Lewandowski and Kylian Mbappé were on the form, and the neutrals will still be waiting for the same tonight.
Players are warming up in Portugal, but there’s enough time left to do politics before getting stuck in the game.
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has said the organization plans to make matches for a Champions League and Europa League match a permanent feature of tournaments.
“I have to say that this formula of one game is more attractive to me than the other formula with two-legged matches,” he told the AP.
“That’s one of the things that has happened through this pandemic. We had to put such a formula in position. We had to play that way, but in the end we see that it’s a very formula.”
“We have noticed that other people need exciting games, that in one game, each and every team can beat each and every team in the Champions League or Europa League.
“So it’s anything for the future … I think in September or October we want to start talking seriously.
“Even if you have fewer matches, he can be higher if you ascend correctly. I see my football and football friends calling me and texting me and everyone is incredibly excited about this system. There aren’t that many tactics.”
Take a look at our full historical report here.
Wayne Rooney believes his former Manchester United teammate Angel Di Maria may be the guy to send PSG back to Champions League glory tonight.
Frenchmans arguably the slight loser of the Lisbon clash due to Bayern’s sensational recent shape.
However, Di Maria recently looked damaging and played a role in the semi-final win over RB Leipzig, scoring once and creating two assists in the comfortable 3-0 win.
And Neymar and Kylian Mbappé are sometimes more praised for their talent than Di Maria, Rooney has subsidised the Argentine winger to make a difference.
“The PSG winner can be Di Maria,” Rooney said. “He’s a wonderful player. When he arrived at United, Louis van Gaal would tell the team, “He’s the only one who can haggle with the ball.”
“Angel works tirelessly on the frame and his performance, vision and are brilliant.”
The three most sensitive PSGs, Neymar, Kylian Mbappé and Angel Di Maria, will be too hot for Bayern Munich to handle in Lisbon tonight, writes Ashley Cole.
And former Arsenal and Chelsea star, who won the Champions League with Les Bleus in 2012, predicts that the Paris attack squad will make a difference.
“Their attacks are different. The three most sensitive PSGs will run you, they’re fast, they’re fast, they’re sharp,” Cole said.
“While apart from Alphonso Davies, Bayern do not like to go through problems. Array is more of a mixed game and then run a little deeper or somewhere in the offensive third.
“I’d rather mark Bayern’s 3 most sensible because you can do it if you’re not too tight and need to work hard aggressively.”
Of course, both sides are replacing the team that brought them here.
PSG goalkeeper Keylor Navas has recovered from a hamstring that prevented him from leaving the semi-final and takes his place among sergio Rico’s postposts.
Bayern’s Kingsley Coman replaces Ivan Perisic on the left wing, which is the first replacement they’ve made since the Champions League resumed.
Paris Saint-Germain XI: Navas, Kehrer, Silva, Kimpembe, Bernat, Herrera, Marquinhos, Paredes, Di Maria, Mbappé, Neymar
Bayern Munich XI: Neuer, Kimmich, Boateng, Alaba, Davies, Thiago, Goretzka, Gnabry, Muller, Coman, Lewandowski
PSG is about to fit the other 41st club to win in the Champions League final (or European Cup).
Possibly they would be involved in the last six groups competing for their first finals have all lost, if they do not recognize that statistic as completely irrelevant, that is.
In the meantime, it will be Bayern Munich’s eleventh final, having played in more than anyone outside Real Madrid.
A win tonight would put them in Liverpool in six European titles.
Both groups reserved their spot at this centrepiece with 3-0 midweek victories.
The French champion, PSG, reached his first Champions League final on Tuesday, eliminating Bundesliga club RB Leipzig.
Germany’s champion Bayern Munich followed the defeats of Chelsea and Barcelona with an impressive victory over Lyon.
So tonight is the third circular France-Germany in Portugal. And there is probably something to say about the dominance of these two countries this season; after all, they are also the last two World Cup champions.
It is far from normal, but it is still the most important match of European club football.
Mirror football will have all the key angles covered in our preparation for kick-off in Lisbon, which is less than two hours away.
First, a brief summary of how we were given here…
The 2020 Champions League final to be played at Istanbul’s Ataturk Olympic Stadium, the site of Liverpool’s remarkable return from AC Milan to AC Milan opposite AC Milan 15 years ago.
But instead, it is played at the Estadio da Luz de Benfica in Lisbon, the place of The least heroic penalty shootout of England against Portugal (and the defeat at the organisation level against France) at Euro 2004.
Oh, and the latter is also scheduled to take position in May, but there was a global pandemic.
This resulted in a new knockout phase, with all the quarter-finals turning into one-leg issues in empty stadiums.