Thomas Tuchel clenched both fists and screamed his joy into the almost empty stadium in Lisbon. When everything looked like another bitter end for Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, the selection of the German coach turned the quarter-finals of the Champions League with two goals in the last minutes and won 2-1. On the day of the club’s 50th birthday, the team gave itself the greatest gift. First Marquinhos equalized (90th minute), then the substitute former Bundesliga player Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting (90th + 3) scored the winning goal in regular time. Mario Pašalić (26th) had put outsider Atalanta Bergamo in the lead.
Tobias Rabe
Responsible editor for Sport Online.
The dramaturgy had a lot from the 1999 final, when Bayern were getting ready to celebrate and then Manchester United tore them out of their dreams with two goals in stoppage time. On Wednesday evening, the Estadio Da Luz wasn’t about a trophy, but a lot. Despite the immense financial expenditure that the owners from Qatar have pumped into the club since 2011, Paris had last reached a semi-finals in the premier class 25 years ago. And for a long time it looked like another bad disappointment was coming this season.
The French dominator has won umpteen titles in his home country in recent years. This season there were four more with the championship, cup win, league cup and supercup. But all the shiny trophies from France are becoming a habit. Only the title in the European Cup Winners’ Cup 1996 stands for Paris internationally. Now it should finally be more. “We never won the Champions League,” said winning goal scorer Choupo-Moting, the Hamburg-born German-Cameroonian. “We have already won four trophies, but this one is the most important.”
The fact that this is still possible at the final tournament in Portugal, which is delayed due to the corona pandemic and in a simple mode with only one game per round in front of empty spectators, was largely due to Choupo-Moting, who initiated the equalization with a cross , and scored the second goal from close range himself. “It was a crazy game,” said the striker, who once played for Hamburger SV, Nürnberg, Mainz and Schalke in the Bundesliga. “It was tough against tough opponents.” That was Bergamo indeed. Statisticians counted 29 fouls.
Atalanta wanted to annoy their opponents with the style of play, which was not brutal, but repeatedly disrupted the flow of play in Paris with small irregularities. And that succeeded – until stoppage time. Neymar, the best player on the pitch, expressed his displeasure with the nature of the Italians more than once. But finally the lamenting Brazilian remembered his quality as a football player and was instrumental in both goals. First he played a brilliant pass to assists Kylian Mbappé at 1: 1, then he presented Choupo-Moting himself final. “He’s extraordinary, I’ve always said that,” praised Tuchel Joker Choupo-Moting.
“When I came in, I thought: ‘We can’t lose, we can still go home this way,'” said Choupo-Moting, who had been substituted on like German international Julian Draxler. Tuchel watched the game while sitting on a light blue barrel. He had broken a metatarsal last week. When events rolled over in the final phase, nothing stopped him either. He stood cheering on one leg in his coaching zone. “We played a very, very strong game,” said Tuchel. “Getting through is absolutely deserved, even if we were lucky in the end. Sometimes it is hard to understand from the outside how much work there is. This is a great success and a very, very big step for us. “
The late win is also worth a lot for Tuchel personally. The pressure to succeed in Paris is immense. An out against outsider Bergamo would have weakened his position. Every time the club does not achieve its goal internationally, the coach gets into the discussion in the French capital, no matter how many national titles have been collected for the showcase. Now the entry into the final beckons. In the semi-finals, RB Leipzig or Atlético Madrid are waiting, who will play in their quarter-finals this Thursday (9:00 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Champions League, on Sky and DAZN).
It is uncertain whether Keylor Navas will be able to take part in the fight for the final next Tuesday. The goalkeeper from Costa Rica had to be replaced with problems in his thigh. Mbappé, the nimble world champion, was at least ready after an injury to come after an hour of play. With Neymar, he tore the game to himself and was instrumental in the turnaround. Angel Di Maria, who was suspended against Bergamo, is now available again. “There is only one game left until the final,” said Neymar. “We will give everything. When we have a mentality like we do today, it’s hard to beat us. “
Late in the evening in Lisbon, President Nasser al-Khelaifi was also beaming at the success that brought the Qatar to the big goal of winning the Champions League. “It’s a very special day for us, just great,” he said. It took exactly such a victory to convince the critics in Paris, said al-Khelaifi. “After the championship was canceled it wasn’t easy, now I’m very proud.” But the work is not yet finished. An end in the duel in the semifinals – and all the bliss and pride give way to the long-known European disenchantment that the birthday child on Wednesday has experienced so often.
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