Champions League final P.S.G. , Bayern Munich : Live Scoring and Updates

 

 Champions League final P.S.G. , Bayern Munich : Live Updates

P.S.G. , Bayern Munich : Live Scoring and Updates

By Rory Smith and Andrew Das

Right Now

Bayern and Paris St.-Germain are playing a scoreless, but high quality, final in Lisbon.

Paris St.-Germain and Bayern Munich are meeting Sunday in the final of the Champions League, European soccer’s richest and grandest club competition. The final is being played at Benfica’s Estádio da Luz in Lisbon. Bayern and P.S.G. both won comfortably in the semifinals.

TV: Sunday’s game will be broadcast in the United States on the CBS Sports Network and, in Spanish, on Univision.

A half filled with danger, and more to come.

The best gauge of how good any game is, to my mind, is how quickly it seems to pass, and that first half did not seem to last anywhere close to 45 minutes. True, it’s goalless; true, there have been only a handful of actual chances, but the quality is so high — and the risk inherent in both teams’ determination to play “through the thirds,” as soccer people insist on saying, so great — that it’s moved at quite a zip. 

It increasingly has the feel, though, of a game that might be decided by a mistake: one pass too many, one heavy touch in just the wrong place. Both teams are flirting with danger. Eventually one of them is going to get caught.

45’ Bayern appeals for a penalty! Did it have a case?

Coman turns the corner on Kehrer on what turns out to be the final attack of the half. And he beat him, too, turning toward the goal and then falling as he felt some contact from behind. The Italian referee took a loooooooong look, maybe waiting for the video-assistant referee to give him some guidance. But as Müller screams in his face he decides not to point to the spot.

43’A shift in urgency as we near the half.

After trading punches — but no real haymakers — in the first 40 minutes, both teams appear content to be a bit more careful as we near halftime. Bayern is still pressing, and then harrying anyone who tries to move the ball out of the back on the ground. P.S.G., meanwhile, still seems to be looking to strike fast whenever possible. Both teams have played well; they’ve just not scored. Yet.

And just then they nearly did: a terrible turnover by Alaba in his own penalty area hands the ball — after a quick give-and-go with Herrera — to an open Mbappé (!!!!) at the spot. But he didn’t strike his shot cleanly or accurately, and Neuer smothers it.

Rory checks in again about a player you might have missed:

There are, obviously, players who will catch the eye much more this evening than Leandro Paredes, but a quick word on the Argentine. He is what a previous generation of British fans called a “schemer,” and there are times where he is a wonderful exponent of the role, as that brilliant, first-time pass for Mbappé a few minutes ago showed. He’s had a slightly peripatetic career — emerging at Boca Juniors, impressing in fits and starts at Roma — and P.S.G. bought him, essentially as emergency cover for Marco Verratti, from Zenit St. Petersburg. He is only 26, but seeing him playing, and playing well on this stage, makes you slightly rueful that he spent 18 months in Russia so early in his career.

31’Lewandowski stopped point blank this time.

A cross from the right somehow finds its way to Lewandowski’s heavily guarded forehead steps in front of Navas, but the Costa Rican is an excellent reaction goalkeeper and he parries it nicely and then collects the rebound.

Bayern is quietly leaning forward again: pressing, probing, sniffing a goal. P.S.G. needs to be careful in these final 15 minutes or so.

25’Danger again for Bayern, and our first sub: Boateng is hurt.

Di Maria fires high from in close — the third great chance in a few minutes — but the more notable outcome of the play is that Bayern’s central defender Jérôme Boateng comes up with a leg injury (it looks like he was grimacing as he held his inner thigh).

Whatever it is, it has ended his day. Niklas Süle is on to replace him, just as he was at halftime of the semifinal.

21’Lewandowski off the post!

A great turn at the penalty spot gives Bayern’s target man a great look. He turns and beats Navas, but didn’t catch the ball purely, and it dings off the left post and stays out. So now both teams have had a good look. Maybe that will open this up even more.

18’Neymar with the first real chance!

A cutting ball from Mbappé cuts open Bayern’s back line in the area and sends Neymar in past Alaba. He fires a left-footed shot at Neuer, who is lucky to catch it with his trailing arm and then block the rebound out for a corner. That’s the first real threatening chance of the match, and it shows what P.S.G. can do in an instant.

12’Rory Smith checks in: No surprises so far.

There’s no sign of Bayern altering its approach to acknowledge the pace P.S.G. boasts up front: Alaba and Boateng have set up camp on the halfway line and are not showing any great interest in going much further back. That is out of necessity, more than anything: If they drop back, then Bayern cannot play the intense, high-pressing game that makes it so dangerous.

How P.S.G. copes with that pressure may well be the decisive influence in the game. It’s tempting to assume that Bayern has a vast amount more experience on this sort of stage and, while that is true at an institutional level, quite whether that counts for anything is anyone’s guess.

The personal is much more relevant, and there things are more balanced. There are four survivors of the 2013 win in Bayern’s starting team (Boateng, Alaba, Manuel Neuer and Thomas Muller), but P.S.G. has three former Champions League winners in Neymar, Angel Di Maria and the restored Keylor Navas. Oh, and Kylian Mbappé has won a World Cup. Does that help?

11’A little switch of field: This is better from P.S.G.

Now it’s the French champions putting on some pressure in Bayern’s end, and Mbappé wins a free kick on the left. It’s a good position, but a better sign. Mbappé has had two shots blocked in quick succession. But he’s had them; that’s the more important thing if you’re Tuchel.

2’Bayern is on the front foot immediately.

Bayern, unsurprisingly, presses from the first minute and promptly forces a dangerous turnover as P.S.G. tries to play out of the back. Bayern wastes it but promptly wins a free kick when P.S.G. tries again.

That’s one way to shift the focus away from your own high back line.

The lineups for the final are out. One change for each team.

Bayern Munich’s Hansi Flick has made one change from the semifinals, with the French wing Kingsley Coman replacing Ivan Perisic on the left. Perisic had played very well but he also has played quite a bit, so this may simply be a search for fresher legs. Flick said he liked Coman’s “quality” and his ability to use his quickness to press P.S.G.’s defenders, but he admitted there’s some sentiment at play with this move, too.

“We’re facing Paris, his boyhood club,” Flick said in an interview before the game. “We hope he will be a bit more motivated.”

Bayern’s XI: Manuel Neuer; Alphonso Davies, David Alaba, Jérôme Boateng, Joshua Kimmich; Thiago Alcantara, Leon Goretzka; Kingsley Coman, Thomas Müller, Serge Gnabry; Robert Lewandowski.

P.S.G.’s biggest change is in goal, where the experienced Keylor Navas returns from a leg injury. But Manager Thomas Tuchel also said Saturday that Marco Verratti (who starts on the bench) is back to health. He can’t go 90 minutes, or 120, but he’s a valuable reserve if his team needs him. He had missed the quarterfinals but made a late cameo as a sub against RB Leipzig in the semifinals.

P.S.G. XI: Keylor Navas, Thilo Kehrer, Thiago Silva, Presnel Kimpembe, Juan Bernat, Marquinhos, Ander Herrera, Leandro Paredes, Angel Di Maria, Neymar, Kylian Mbappé.