Nine Men PSG Defeats Bayern, Goes to Semis

We just witnessed an amazing Quarterfinal match in the FIFA Club World Cup at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. We saw the best of the best compete in 90 minutes of amazing football that many could’ve dreamed of. From a goalkeeper duel to goals, high drama of red cards and a penalty removed by VAR as Paris Saint-Germain defeats Bayern Munich by a final of two goals to nil, while the European Cup Champions finished the match with nine men.

Before the goals were scored, we must discuss the fantastic duel between both goalkeepers as they were on their toes all match long. Fantastic saves and in a wonderful position were Gianluigi Donnarumma of PSG and Manuel Neuer of Bayern were standing tall and making saves out of nowhere. These two found ways to either stay low, keeping their feet moving, and swatting away dangerous chances against both sides. At times, it felt shameful if a goal went through either keeper.

But finally, a goal was scored to break the deadlock. Before the goal was scored in the 78th minute, Desire Doue took a hard challenge by getting fouled in the mouth by Bayern’s Konrad Laimer a few minutes earlier. But he came up huge as he was on the far side of the pitch near Bayern’s area. João Neves had control of the ball and passed it to Doue just outside the top of the area. Took the shot, Neuer lost his footing, and scored inside the front post.

Then PSG started to lose players on the pitch, due to red cards being issued by English Referee Anthony Taylor. In the 81st minute, William Pacho saw Leon Goretzka, who had the ball, and when he attempted to make a tackle, he lunged at Goretzka from in front and took him down. First red card of the match.

But as we got inside second half stoppage time, another red card came out. In the second minute of the seven, a foolish and reckless challenge by Lucas Hernandez. He was defending the ball on Raphael Guerreiro, as they were even with each other, Hernandez threw his left elbow into the face of Guerreiro, and an easy decision for the referee to show the second straight red card of the match to put PSG down to nine men.

The hope was for PSG if they could win the ball to move it up the pitch and take it to the corner. Either corner would’ve been fine, but not the European Cup champions, as they wanted to get that second goal and have that cushion. They did so in the sixth minute of seven minutes of stoppage time, when Hakimi got possession of the ball on the far side, he found Ousmane Dembele trailing the play, then Dembele smashed it in.

After this amazing match that had action, drama, heart-defying moments, it was an amazing display of what this sport is all about, and you hope to see more of this in the next Quarterfinal match, both Semi-Finals, and the Championship Final, all at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. But sadly, there was one moment in this match that was concerning.

Just before the halftime whistle blew, PSG Keeper Donnarumma was tracking the ball toward the endline on the far side as Bayern’s Jamal Musiala was making an attacking run. Donnarumma made a two-handed dive to get the ball, but at the same time, took out Musiala and sadly got injured. You saw the emotion come out of Donnarumma as he never meant to severely injure Musiala. Serge Gnabry was subbed into the match before the start of the second half.