PSG dominates Arsenal to qualify for the second final in its history against Inter Milan

Already winners in the first leg, the capital club won the return match, Wednesday at the Parc des Princes, to open the doors to the final with authority.

PSG will be entitled to its final. The capital club never let Arsenal return, Wednesday May 7, to the semi-final second leg of the Champions League. He did better than defend the short advantage acquired a week earlier in England (1-0), winning again (2-1), but this time in front of his home crowd, in a red-hot stadium. The Parc des Princes had not experienced qualification for a European Cup final since 1996 (in C2 against La Coruna).

It was enough to let the storm that swept over Gianluigi Donnarumma’s goal during the first quarter of an hour pass. Impregnable as since the start of the knockout phase, the Italian goalkeeper made two decisive saves in quick succession. First with a nice reflex on a point-blank attempt from Gabriel Martinelli (4th), then by relaxing completely on a very powerful masked volley from Martin Odegaard (8th).

Now able to accept these low times without panicking, the Parisians took their first breath in the 16th minute with a sequence of passes into the opposing camp. It didn’t take much more to awaken PSG’s offensive potential. After a post hit by Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (17th), Fabian Ruiz opened the scoring with a splendid volley following a free kick, the favorite phase of play for their opponents in the evening.

Determined not to calculate their efforts, and even less to be satisfied with this lead, the Parisians continued to exploit all counter situations in the second half. They obtained a penalty after intervention by the VAR for a handball from Myles Lewis-Skelly, but Vitinha saw his attempt rejected by David Raya (69th). Nothing to frustrate this accustomed team, which always ends up solving its inefficiency problems.

Having just entered the game, Ousmane Dembélé became a decisive passer for Achraf Hakimi, scorer three minutes later after a high recovery and author of the coup de grace (72nd). The reduction in Bukayo Saka’s score (76th) will not have changed anything, neither in the outcome nor in the content of this almost perfect evening. Paris, which had only suffered defeat in the semi-finals played in the two-way format in C1, won both legs of its duel with Arsenal to qualify for the second final in its history in the competition.

Five years after the lunar Final 8, played behind closed doors at the end of the summer in a new format, there is not a shadow of a downside. As Luis Enrique said in the match eve conference: “We are here because we deserved it”. He and his band of uninhibited young people will take off for the final scheduled for May 31 in Munich, against Inter, with the objective of winning the first Champions League in the history of the Parisian club.