Phenomenal Karim Benzema shatters PSG’s Real CL dream | Champions League

By Edwin Winkels

A tightrope walker without a safety net, as a French newspaper described PSG the day before the return against Real Madrid. And that tightrope walker, balancing convincingly and flawlessly on the wire for 150 minutes, with a performance that everyone admired, that tightrope walker fell. And hurt herself unbelievably. For the umpteenth season in a row. The 6-1 defeat to Barcelona in 2017 was very painful, after the 4-0 win at home. And the very first final in the Champions League, in 2020, against Bayern Munich.

But the 3-1 in Madrid undoubtedly hurts a lot more. Because the Parisians were favourites, better for a long time, and had Messi added this season, alongside Neymar and above all Europe’s best at the moment, Mbappe. But that PSG, built up for ten years with the unlimited billions of the oil sheiks from Qatar, is already in the eighth finals in 2022.

The battle in the Bernabéu, because of the thorough renovation with 25,000 fewer seats, was a battle between the old empire and the new empire. And the clubs of the first group, Real Madrid at the head, are not allowing these recent fortune seekers into their traditional, chic gentlemen’s club. Time and time again, PSG has been put in the spotlight by the likes of Manchester United, Barca, Bayern and now Real Madrid.

Real Madrid, in number of prizes – the last in 2018 – the absolute ‘king of Europe’, as a banner in the stands once again emphasized, showed over two matches the now slightly too old-fashioned, stiff rich, whose glory of previously vanished. The ‘youngster’ from Paris surpassed the Royal on almost all fronts: possession, goal-orientation, quality and, most importantly, goals. Or, perhaps even more fundamentally, that one player who makes the difference. Not Messi, not Neymar, but the captain of the new generation, the Kylian Mbappe, who is not for nothing that Real president Pérez wants to take in as soon as possible.

Just like in the first leg, Mbappe was the big scourge for Real Madrid’s defense. He scored three times in the Bernabéu, twice his goal was disallowed for offside. But a flawless counterattack led to the deserved and apparently decisive lead six minutes before half-time, after the 1-0 in Paris. Courtois, another long stand in the way for the French, was outwitted in the short corner by a seething shot from Mbappé.

There was no convincing response from the Madrilenians. Until a blundering goalkeeper Donnarumma decided after an hour to breathe new life into the match. His gift in poor defense was, of course, used by Benzema: 1-1. And don’t give those old rich the chance to show their pride in one last convulsion. And don’t let your own nerves take over, as PSG has often done. As a result, it was not Mbappé’s race, but Benzema’s ten years older. The hat-trick, a valid one, belonged to the young star’s compatriot, who may well have been convinced of his coming choice: to triumph in Europe, he will have to move from Paris to Madrid.