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Arsenal went to Paris on Wednesday with belief and ambition, with dreams of a Champions League comeback. It came with desire and drive, with fight and a front-foot plan, with the “big balls” that Declan Rice said would be required. But it came without penalty-box punch, and fell to Paris Saint-Germain.
PSG won Wednesday’s second leg 2-1, and the semifinal 3-1 on aggregate, to advance to its second Champions League final — where it will face Inter Milan and aim for its first European title.
Its semifinal challengers, the Gunners, arrived with a one-goal deficit, but with hope. They came with energy and initiative. They brought Bukayo Saka and Martin Ødegaard, Rice and Gabriel Martinelli. And for 90 minutes at the Parc des Princes, they pushed, and searched for a path back into the two-leg matchup. But they came without a striker. And after an early flurry of chances, they ran out of ideas. They also ran into the hottest goalkeeper in the world, Gianluigi Donnarumma.
The hulking PSG keeper tipped or pushed away Arsenal’s best efforts. He preempted any Arsenal momentum. He ultimately deflated and shut down a wounded attack that has been without a true No. 9 since Kai Havertz went down with injury in February.
And he watched as, at the other end, Fabian Ruiz and Achraf Hakimi sent their club soaring into the final. Ruiz doubled PSG’s aggregate lead in the 27th minute, with a well-struck and deflected volley that screamed into the corner of the Arsenal net.
Midway through the second half, Hakimi kicked off a Paris party. He beat David Raya in the 72nd minute, and that’s when the Parc des Princes fully erupted. Flares ignited. A cocktail of smoke and noise wafted over the field. Songs and claps rang around the ground as fans bounced, their mood triumphant.
A scrappy, fluky Arsenal goal four minutes later quieted the early celebrations. But at the final whistle, with fireworks lighting up the Parisian night, they resumed.
Because in the end, this remade PSG team, reborn after the fall of its megastar era, got to where it belonged.
The final will be May 31 in Munich, against Inter Milan. It will be the second European final in PSG’s history, five years after the first — a 2020 loss to Bayern Munich.
And it will be a chance to confirm what the past few months have increasingly suggested: that the Parisians, once overlooked after the departure of Kylian Mbappé, are perhaps the best team in all of soccer. A blow-by-blow recap of the game that got them there, Wednesday’s semifinal second leg, is below.
Source: Myghanadaily
