PARIS: Mats Hummels headed in the only goal as Borussia Dortmund stunned Kylian Mbappe and Paris Saint-Germain in its Champions League semifinal second leg on Tuesday, winning 1-0 on the night and advancing 2-0 on aggregate to next month’s final at Wembley.
Hummels struck five minutes into the second half at the Parc des Princes and PSG was unable to muster a response, the home side all out of luck as it hit the woodwork four times in total.
Dortmund, which sits fifth in the German Bundesliga, was never expected to go so far and will be underdogs in the June 1 showpiece regardless of whether it faces its old rivals Bayern Munich or Real Madrid.
It will be the first final since 2013 when, remarkably, the match was also played at Wembley and Jurgen Klopp’s Dortmund team lost to Bayern.
Hummels played in that final and here, 11 years later, he was the hero as Dortmund built on the advantage given to them by Niclas Fuellkrug’s goal in the first leg.
The story of this semifinal, however, is just as much about PSG’s failure in another crunch knockout tie in the competition.
It has still never won the trophy despite all the money invested by the Qatari owners since the 2011 takeover, and there will be no dream send-off for Mbappe.
He will leave when his contract expires after this season and had been hoping to play his last game for the club in the June 1 final.
Instead PSG will be left to reflect on how it failed to get its hands on the biggest trophy of all during Mbappe’s seven years at his hometown team.
PSG’s last two semifinal appearances both came during the pandemic, meaning this was the first time it had hosted a match at this stage of a European competition with fans in 29 years, since losing to AC Milan in 1995.
It was the favourite to reach its first Champions League final since 2020, despite the defeat in Dortmund six days earlier. Agencies
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