PSG in the final after drinking the half pressure – Liberation
Winner (1-0) in London in the outwardParis-SG won (2-1) Wednesday at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday and will compete in the Champions League final on May 31 in Munich against Inter Milan. During this return semi-final, the champions of France will not have to climb to the curtain, not only superior in all but animated by an unusual conviction with what will have put in the game a team of resigned arsenal spent the first half hour. And who will not even have changed the change.
In the very controlled satisfaction of the Parisians after the first leg in London, something had passed under radars: not satisfaction, let’s exaggerate anything, but the relief of English players in the mixed zone, devolved to exchanges between journalists and the actors after the meeting. Dominated, the Gunners had managed to stay alive. Under shooting (a disbursement goal) of an opponent who had impressed, Bukayo Saka having been « impressed by cohesion, the way of circulating the ball, that of finding the right rhythmAnd print it in the match.
In short: the men coached by Mikel Arteta had two floors the space of an evening, which asked the question of what he was going to do with this new modesty when returning. In fact, Thomas Partey and others attacked the game in a completely different state of mind. Deprived of Ousmane Dembélé, confined to the bench after his muscle alert during the first leg, the Parisian team had no other choice than to fall back and rely on his goalkeeper, Gianluigi Donnarumma, author of a first prodigy flush with his left post (8th) on a dry cover of Martin Ödegaard, Arsenal captain.
The same action (center pushed, recovery of an attacker posted at the limit of the repair surface and strikes) but in color, with a speed of upper execution and a praline to crack a marble, will put Paris-SG in control and there was some justice to see the Spanish environment Fabian Ruiz, more often than in turn in the hold where he balances without being noticed the movements of his partners, (1-0, 27th) on such a gesture. Arsenal’s momentum was felt. The capacity of Marquinhos, Pacho and the others to reign in their own surface, cutting all the centers swung a little blindly by the English, did the rest and the Parisians rallied the lemons without a shot (1-0).
Upon returning from the locker room, the Arsenal players split an incongruous action: benefiting from an eccentric free kick on the line separating the two camps, very exactly in the midfield, they mandated their goalkeeper to hit him … in the Parisian surface. A Kick and Rush Raised from the Upper Paleolithic of football at a time when everyone reasons speed, space management, ball circulation on width and false calls. The Londoners are helpless. To have wanted to play at the finest with the Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya instead of sending a mine, Vitinha will leave a penalty on the way (69th) but that has no importance in the context, Saka and his own having raised his foot for a good half hour.
Achraf Hakimi devoted himself to putting a ball at the bottom that Party forgot to attack (2-0, 72nd), Saka reduced the scoring because Marquinhos collapsed by claiming the fault rather than defending (2-1, 76th) and the game resumed its somewhat dummy course, as if the two teams had happened to the same conclusion and no longer saw themselves contesting the step of things. It is not forbidden to see a tribute from the current second league to the high competitiveness of the team trained by Luis Enrique, capable of evolving in several registers. And which will have suffered much less during this double confrontation than during the previous towers, against Liverpool (0-1, 1-0, 5-3 in penalties) and Aston Villa (3-1, 2-3).
