The more things change, the more they stay the same - or so the adage goes. Paris Saint-Germain were supposed to be a different team this year, a squad that had been stripped down and fine-tuned, with Kylian Mbappe the central star in a well-oiled machine.
But on Tuesday in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final, they befell the same, entirely predictable fate, a marketing project falling at the hands of a real football team, Mbappe rendered near-useless as they crashed out of Europe's biggest competition with a 2-0 aggregate loss to Borussia Dortmund.
Everything about this was too familiar. PSG showed effort, put a lot of shots on goal, and were a bit unlucky that five or six of them didn't go in. But they were also missing in the big moments. Meanwhile, Dortmund put together an impressively gritty performance, with Mats Hummels deservedly scoring the only goal in the 1-0 victory at Parc des Princes.
Following a quiet first half, the game came alive after the break. The Parisians should have opened the scoring within minutes of the whistle, as Warren Zaire-Emery and Goncalo Ramos both missed golden chances within the same passage of play.
And Dortmund took advantage. Edin Terzic's side were dangerous from set-pieces throughout the tie, and finally capitalised as Hummels rose to meet Julian Brandt's teasing corner and headed home at the back post. What followed was a glut of PSG misses, as they tallied 30 shots in the game, hit the woodwork four times, and tallied an xG of 3.22. They could not, however, force the ball home.
Still, there was a feeling that they didn't deserve to win, as Terzic's well-coached team ground out a result the proper way, showing a superpower built on glitz and ego what European success looks like. And Mbappe ended his Parisian career in the only way that felt appropriate - a dramatic but entirely predictable defeat.
GOAL breaks down the winners & losers from Parc des Princes...
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