The goal that won this game was a portrait of how it had been played: all in, all the way to the end. A move that started deep in Paris Saint-Germain’s half with Lee Kang-in chased backwards, turning, escaping and going at the same opponents who had been pursuing him, ended in the Barcelona penalty area with Gonçalo Ramos slotting past Wojciech Szczesny. There were six seconds left, it was the 26th shot of an exhausting and enjoyable night, and now it really was over, Barcelona beaten.
For an hour of generous effort and high quality, they had gone at each other; for the last half an hour, as Barcelona tired and PSG somehow didn’t, Luis Enrique’s side kept pressing and ultimately justice was done. The European champions still look a step ahead even with illustrious absentees, the Ballon d’Or winner, Ousmane Dembélé, among them.
Everywhere, in both sides, players caught the eye, as much for the commitment as the quality, the speed at which everything happened, the intent in every action, the refusal to step back from the edge.
They had gone at each other from the start. Fabián Ruiz sent the ball straight out from kick-off, his teammates sprinting after it in a pack, pressing Barcelona from the first throw. Ferran Torres, roared by the crowd, then slid in on Lucas Chevalier on 35 seconds.
If that was a statement of intent, what to call what followed? Achraf Hakimi had warned that this time Lamine Yamal faced the world’s best left-back and that, anyway, they would try not to leave Nuno Mendes one on one. So the first time he got the ball, on 85 seconds, Lamine Yamal took on three instead, spinning away, roulette included, to set up an opening for Torres and what for a while felt like a personal battle.
The next time Lamine Yamal got possession, a drop of the shoulder took him away again only for Mendes to recover. Then an outrageous pass with the outside of his foot, travelling like a curler’s stone sliding home across the rink, found Torres. The striker went round Chevalier and shot towards what he thought was an unguarded goal only for Illia Zabarnyi to fly in from out of shot and block it.
When Barcelona took the lead it had started with Lamine Yamal’s alertness too but the decisive touch came from the other wing and an increasingly familiar source, Marcus Rashford’s first-time ball setting up Torres to score. For the sixth successive game Rashford had a goal or an assist and there might have been more: a shot blocked was followed by a run stopped at the last as he sought Dani Olmo.
By then PSG were level. A man for whom “defender” is a woefully inadequate description, Mendes came flying out and through the middle of the field, going past people like Carl Lewis at a school sports day. Frenkie de Jong took him out, but the studs on Mendes’s achilles didn’t stop him doing it again soon after: now he rocketed past Jules Koundé to set up Senny Mayulu, who finished. PSG should have led before the break too, Bradley Barcola evading Gerard Martín and firing over.
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Still they went at it. Fast feet enabled Barcola to rattle off a shot that Szczesny blocked and Pau Cubarsi blocked Hakimi. Then a superb tackle from Eric García saved Barcelona one second and released them the next. The move ended when Lamine Yamal was taken down by a foul on the edge of the area which should have come with a second yellow for Mendes. Almost immediately, another dash and perfectly delivered diagonal from Rashford found Lamine Yamal, who set up Olmo; Hakimi produced a fantastic block almost on the line.
Yet PSG were tilting the balance. Lee hit the post. Mendes’s last act before departing was to force a save. And, with time slipping away and Lee chased down, he escaped to start one last move. There was Vitinha, as always, making sense of it all. There too was Hakimi somehow still running, space opening before him, opportunity too. Invited in, he provided the perfect pass for Ramos to end it.
