PARIS: Eleven years after losing 2-1 to German rivals Bayern Munich in the 2013 Champions League final, Borussia Dortmund have overcome the odds and are heading back to Wembley.

Dortmund’s 1-0 win over Paris St Germain in the French capital thanks to a header from Mats Hummels on Tuesday saw the Germans complete a 2-0 aggregate win, becoming the most unlikely Champions League finalists since Tottenham Hotspur in 2019.

In the June 1 final in London, they will face either Bayern again or 14-time champions Real Madrid.

Dortmund came into the season on the back of a bitter Bundesliga title loss on the final matchday of the previous campaign.

And while their league results quickly confirmed Edin Terzic’s team did not have the consistency to be a serious title contender this season, it was a different story in Europe.

Dortmund, who won the tournament in 1997, cruised through their group with only one loss in six matches against PSG, AC Milan and Newcastle United.

“There is always a team that no one has on their radar that reaches the quarter-finals or the semi-finals. We wanted to be the team that will not necessarily on anyone’s radar,” Terzic said. “That road has been unbelievable.

“Last season, we lost the championship at home on the last matchday. I’m happy that we can now give something back to the fans,” Terzic added, remembering how Bayern Munich snatched the Bundesliga title from Dortmund on goal difference.

“[Going to the fans] was a very emotional moment, a beautiful moment. We wished it for last season’s last matchday. But today we could pay something back, keep them dreaming and now we’ll do everything to bring the trophy back home.”

Dortmund did not play the kind of spectacular football that instantly attracts attention but scored key wins at Newcastle and Milan. After losing on the first matchday Dortmund went five group games without defeat to top the section.

“After the second matchday [following a loss at PSG and a home draw against Milan] almost no one believed in us any more,” said captain Emre Can. “We only had one point after two matches but we kept believing in us and that was the most important thing. Keeping two clean sheets in two matches against PSG is no mean feat.”

Borussia Dortmund veteran Marco Reus, who announced on Friday he would leave the club at the end of the season, said “nobody expected us to make it”.

“Tomorrow nobody will ask how we did it. They will just see the name Borussia Dortmund in the final at Wembley,” Reus said to Amazon Prime. “Today it was clear that we needed to suffer and that we needed some luck, but what the lads did was crazy, crazy.”

Prior to their two 1-0 wins over PSG in the last four, Dortmund had dispatched PSV Eindhoven in the round of 16 and Atletico Madrid in the quarter-finals. A re-match with Bayern remains on the cards.

“We will come up against a very tough opponent, no matter who it is,” said Hummels. “Since that second matchday we have kept believing we can hold our own in the Champions League. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever not to believe that we can also win the final.”

Dortmund have played a roller-coaster Bundesliga season and are currently in fifth place with two games left.

“That plays no role,” Terzic said. “In 2013 when Dortmund were in the Champions League final they were 25 points behind in the league and in 1997 when they won it they were also not doing well. The season had highs and lows but our season is still not finished.”

Dortmund rode their luck in both semi-finals, with PSG hitting the woodwork six times — including four times on Tuesday.

Despite needing assistance from the goal frame, Dortmund’s central defensive pairing of Hummels and Nico Schlotterbeck kept PSG’s ace attacker Kylian Mbappe under check.

PSG began the second half well but their flurry was cut short when Hummels headed in from a corner on the 50-minute mark.

Hummels’ headers have a history of breaking French hearts.

At the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Hummels nodded in the only goal in Germany’s 1-0 quarter-final win over France on their way to a fourth crown.

Hummels’ contract expires at the end of the season and he has said he will not decide until the summer where he plays next season — or whether he plays on at all.

But while the veteran may join Reus in walking off into the Westfalenstadion sunset, his whereabouts on the first Saturday in June remains clear.

MBAPPE DENIED DREAM PSG FAREWELL

Mbappe, however, will not get his dream farewell from PSG after their shock exit deprived him of playing his last game for the club at Wembley.

The 2018 World Cup winner will leave PSG after seven years when his contract expires at the end of this season, with Real Madrid his likely next destination.

He had hoped to sign off by leading the Qatar-owned club to Champions League glory for the first time in their history, but missed two good chances at the Parc des Princes.

“I tried to help my team as best as I could but I didn’t do enough,” Mbappe said. “I’m the guy who should score goals and be decisive. When things are good, I take all the limelight and when they are not, you have to take the shadow. That’s not a problem. The first one who should have scored tonight was me. That’s life and we have to move on, me and the team.”

It will be hard for PSG to do that, given how close they were to reaching the final for the second time, four years on from their defeat against Bayern Munich in Lisbon.

That will forever remain as close as Mbappe came to lifting the European Cup with his hometown team, for whom he is their all-time top scorer with 255 goals.

Being knocked out by the team who sit fifth in the Bundesliga looks like a disaster for a club who have invested as much as PSG over the years since the Qatari takeover of 2011.

However, the truth is also that this PSG side was not seriously expected to get this far, despite the presence of Mbappe.

A massive overhaul of the squad was undertaken ahead of this season following the departures of Lionel Messi and Neymar, and Luis Enrique was brought in to oversee the new project

“The objective I set out when I arrived was to compete as well as we could for every trophy,” the Spanish coach said on Tuesday. “Tonight I’m proud of my team, of all the players.”

PSG won the Ligue 1 title and have the French Cup final to come later this month.

“We weren’t efficient, they were efficient, they scored two goals and won both matches. There’s a lot to take back from this competition,” captain Marquinhos told reporters.

“At the start of the season, nobody believed we’d get this far. We’ve overcome a lot of obstacles, but we can’t throw everything away now just because we’ve been eliminated. We have to remember that this is a new project, with a new coach. There are positive things to take into the next season.”

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2024