Paris St-Germain reached their first-ever Champions League final in style with a comfortable victory over RB Leipzig in a thrilling semi-final in Lisbon.
Goals from Marquinhos, Angel di Maria and Juan Bernat took the French moneybags one step closer to the Holy Grail long sought by their Qatari owners.
After knocking on the door for years, burning through a fortune and suffering several humiliating ousters and near-misses on the way, PSG have finally succeeded in cracking the glass ceiling and are now on the cusp of European superpower status.
It was also a win for master over student as PSG boss Thomas Tuchel encouraged his counterpart in the opposite dugout Julian Nagelsmann to take up coaching when the pair were both at Augsburg and the former had seen his playing career ended at the age of 20 by a serious knee injury.
Marquinhos sparked PSG’s comeback win over Atalanta in the last eight when he scored the first of two late goals, reprised his goalscoring form once more, rising highest to power home a superbly delivered free-kick from Di Maria.
The Argentine former Manchester United forward then scored from close range following an exquisite flick from Neymar after Leipzig goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi had misplaced a pass while attempting to play out from the back.
Prior to PSG’s second, captain Yussuf Poulsen should have pulled Leipzig level with their best chance but scuffed his shot wide after he was found by a Dani Olmo pull-back.
PSG had the fit again Kylian Mbappe restored to the line up and his pace allied with Neymar’s trickery caused plenty problems for Leipzig’s defence with the latter twice hitting the post – from a clipped finish and then an opportunist free-kick from range – before side-footing another chance wide at the near post.
Bernat sealed the win in the second half with a header that appeared to be offside on first viewing but was shown to be legitimate in the replays as the prone Nordi Mukiele, who had slipped in the build-up, was playing the scorer onside.
The Parisians will play either Bayern Munich or Lyon in Sunday’s final.
