PARIS:
Kylian Mbappe will not get a dream farewell to Paris Saint-Germain after their shock Champions League exit by Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday denied him his final game for the club in the final at Wembley next month.
The 2018 World Cup winner will leave PSG after seven years when his contract expires at the end of this season, with Real Madrid likely to be his next destination.
He had hoped to sign off by leading the Qatari-owned club to Champions League glory for the first time in their history and they were favorites to beat Dortmund at the Parc des Princes in the second semi-final.
But they were unable to overturn a one-goal first-leg deficit, with Mats Hummels scoring the only goal of the night to give Dortmund a 2-0 aggregate victory.
Mbappe was one of four PSG players to hit the woodwork in the second half and manager Luis Enrique complained his side — who had 31 attempts on goal — were “unlucky”.
“I don’t really like to talk about bad luck,” Mbappe said shortly afterwards.
“When you’re good, you don’t hit the post, you score. I tried to help as best I could. When I say we should have been more clinical, I’m the one who has to score. But that’s life, we have to get up.”
It will be difficult for PSG to do so given how close they came to reaching the final for the second time, four years after losing to Bayern Munich in Lisbon.
That will forever remain as close as Mbappe came to winning the European Cup with his hometown club, for whom he is the all-time top scorer with 255 goals.
A total of 42 of those have come in Europe’s top club competition, but he was unable to add to that tally in the two legs against Dortmund.
“The end of his dream” was the headline in sports newspaper L’Equipe, which gave a scathing assessment of the France captain’s performance, giving him a score of two out of 10.
A ban from the Bundesliga’s fifth-placed side looks like a disaster for a club that has invested as much as PSG over the years since taking over from Qatar in 2011.
It is the latest in a long line of huge upsets in the knockout rounds of the Champions League, led by a 6-1 defeat by Barcelona in the last 16 in 2017 after winning the first leg 4-0.
“PSG hit their head against the glass ceiling on a night when the sky seemed to be the limit,” reflected Vincent Duluc in L’Equipe.
“The truth is that this layoff is the downfall given the gigantic opportunity that was on offer.”
However, the truth is also that this PSG team was not seriously expected to go this far, despite the presence of Mbappe.
A massive overhaul of the squad took place ahead of this season following the departures of Lionel Messi and Neymar, and Luis Enrique was brought in to oversee the new project.
“The goal I set when I arrived was to fight as best we could for every trophy,” the Spanish coach said on Tuesday.
His side have already won Ligue 1 and Mbappe’s last game will now be the French Cup final against Lyon on May 25.
But perhaps their lack of experience at this level ultimately cost them — according to statisticians Opta, their starting line-up had an average age of 24 years and 157 days, the youngest of any team in a Champions League semi-final since Arsenal v Manchester United in 2009.
Luis Enrique will have to hope that the experience his young players have gathered can help them next year.
“We have to remember that it’s a new project with a new coach, with a lot of changes. There are a lot of positives and good things to take forward next season,” captain Marquinhos told Canal Plus.
It is hard to imagine how PSG can be better equipped to win the Champions League without Mbappe, even if they will certainly spend big on a replacement.
The coach has either regularly left Mbappe out of the squad or removed his star man in domestic league games over the past three months, apparently in the name of planning for next season.
That strategy ultimately failed to help PSG win the one trophy they really crave this campaign, and Mbappe — now 25 — will be hoping to finally get his hands on it after leaving Paris.
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