PARIS – Write this down for the unwelcome. Dortmund's motley crew of mutts and strays, old screamers and foundlings raced into the Parc des Princes and, just as they did in front of the Yellow Wall six days earlier, took down the mighty Paris Saint-Germain, the team with the biggest budget. tall and, equally important, the most desired future free agent in world football: Kylian Mbappé. Who, by the way, barring a radical last-minute change (unlikely but, hell, he's done it before) will leave his hometown club without delivering a European Cup.
Is the “unwanted” label harsh for Borussia Dortmund? You are welcome.
Mats Hummels, whose header sealed the tie: unwanted by Bayern Munich, as was big man Niklas Süle. Or the trio of loan players who started the game: Ian Maatsen (unwanted by Chelsea because he is supposedly too short to play at left back), Jadon Sancho (unwanted by Manchester United because he causes agitation for Erik ten Hag and all the others) and Marcel Sabitzer (not wanted by Bayern because the guy who signed him is no longer there… or maybe it's the combination of thin mustache and bun). Or, indeed, the first-leg goalscorer, Niclas Füllkrug: no one wanted him until Germany realized, at 29, that he was worth calling up for the World Cup.
Heck, even resident legend Marco Reus, who was there the last time Dortmund reached the Champions League final 11 years ago, may be classified in the unwanted ranks, having been recently informed by the club that they would not extend your contract.
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All of this is in stark contrast to PSG, and not just because of Mbappé. The Qatari plan to plant the flag at the top of European football may have shifted from acquiring established megastars (Lionel Messi and Neymar are gone) to promising talents, but money is still being wasted, be it Gonçalo Ramos. or Ousmane Dembélé or Randal Kolo Muani. And to ensure that Mbappé said “au revoir” with a European Cup in his metaphorical pocket, they had hired Luis Enrique as coach, the no-nonsense visionary who didn't coddle superstars or massage egos, but instead preached team spirit and altruism.
On Tuesday, little of the Luis Enrique effect was seen as PSG lost 1-0 in the second leg, a 2-0 aggregate defeat in the semi-final. He then boasted that PSG had hit the post four times, perhaps forgetting that two of them came at the end, when his best-laid plans had fallen apart and he was throwing the sink at Dortmund, having resorted to the old plan of simply adding more forwards and extremes as we chase the match.
PSG would finish the match in siege mode, with Mbappé, Dembélé, Lee Kang-in, Bradley Barcola and Marco Asensio on the pitch at the same time. Which, in a way, was fitting because Dortmund coach Edin Terzic, once a wunderkind as a creative coach, now a guy teetering on the edge of the bed… at least before this game, He responded with a lot of yin to Enrique's yang. going into full lockdown mode by removing Sancho and sending in the 6ft 7in Sule to clog space and hook headers.
At that time, Mbappé, who had little joy on the field, was moved to the middle, where he had even less space to operate. He almost drowned in a sea of yellow, appearing three minutes from time to hit the crossbar but offering little more than frustration. In fact, little had gone right for Mbappé that night, from his uncoordinated shot in the six-yard box early in the match to his attempted backheel shot later in the air and the chance at the end when, clearly on goal, he slipped. on the grass of the Parc des Princes.
Mbappé left Monaco to return to Paris and make history before moving on to the next chapter of his career. He rewrote PSG's record books and won titles, but an individual performance like this is not what he had envisioned for his final Champions League game with PSG.
But really the story is Dortmund, reminding us that part of the magic of this low-scoring and often meaningless sport is that the unwanted trapped in a nightmare domestic season can actually make it to football's biggest game. of clubs. .
Part of this may be due to PSG's profligacy, of course, but you also have to be there to take advantage of your opponents' mistakes. And Dortmund did it with the utmost humility, whether it was Fullkrug tying up PSG's central defenders or Sabitzer being a pest in midfield or 35-year-old Hummels using all his cunning and experience to lose his 20-year-old marker. . Old Lucas Beraldo, for Dortmund's goal.
At the final whistle, Dortmund ran towards the stands in the corner of the pitch, which their supporters had converted into a travel-sized version of the Yellow Wall at home. They danced and celebrated with the fans, a single banana-colored mass of passion.
And PSG? Mbappé stood, head bowed in apoplexy, while most of his teammates seemed frozen on the field, in disbelief.
In a way, Enrique was right: PSG had more opportunities in two games. But in other ways he is wrong: that doesn't mean they deserved to advance or even played better. It just means they have better players. But better players who, unlike Dortmund, did not add up to more than the sum of their parts. That's basically how you end up with a whopping 3.22 expected goals, or xG, and a big goose egg on the scoreboard.
They will learn and grow. Their leaders, Achraf Hakimi, Dembélé and Marquinhos, have a lot of football ahead of them. The children will improve: Vitinha is 24 years old, Ramos 23, Barcola 21, Beraldo 20 and Warren Zaire-Emery 17. And, it is assumed, they will return. Well, everyone except (probably) Mbappé. At least not with this PSG team.
Sometimes football is like an old John Hughes movie. The popular girl, the one everyone pines for, loses out. And the unwanted rejects have their day.
