“Wow, what a fight we experienced today on this wonderful evening in Paris. It felt like a semi-final or a final,” said Dreesen in the five-star residence on the Champs-Élysées with a view of the Eiffel Tower, where the Bayern entourage duly celebrated the triumph. “The first half with the 2-0 – we could have scored three or four goals – and the red card. Then this second half, where everyone stood up for the other,” he summarized the events. “We showed that we can not only do magic and score goals, but that we can also defend.”
This was especially true for the two central defenders Jonathan Tah and Dayot Upamecano, who both played an outstanding game and received t-online grade 1 for it. “We had to suffer together and go through hell together,” said Tah. “We did that. It wasn’t easy, but we did it.”
After the red card, sports director Max Eberl was already “clear that the second half would be this ominous battle,” as he explained in the catacombs of the Prinzenpark Stadium.
Eberl sees the fact that the team beat “one of the best football teams in Europe” as a further step in development: “We know that if we just have to defend, we can do that too. That’s why the win today is really worth a lot.”
Honorary President Uli Hoeneß had sent his Bayern into the competition as “Hoffenheim of the Champions League”. This understatement is finally over now. In any case, at the Bayern banquet, no one had the idea of handing out T-shirts that read “Champions League winner-defeater” – as the real Hoffenheim team would certainly have done in this case.
With the statement victory at PSG, the German record champions are now suddenly the current top favorites to win the title.
At least that’s how 2014 world champion Mats Hummels sees it. “You have everything. Individual quality, the team spirit, the plan, the coach,” said the Prime expert. “And two or three players who will be back soon and also have a lot of quality.” This refers to Jamal Musiala, Alphonso Davies and Hiroki Itō, all three of whom are about to return to team training after serious injuries.