A football match that produced five goals in the first half, four more in the second, and delivered the most exhilarating end-to-end action seen in recent years is being hailed as the greatest UEFA Champions League semifinal of all time.<\/p>\n
Even before kickoff, the Paris Saint-Germain vs Bayern Munich semifinal on Tuesday was predicted to be a goalfest, but experts and fans have been left dumbfounded by the quality of football that bookended those nine goals.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Football great Thierry Henry termed the game, which ended in a 5-4 win for PSG, \u201cpure cinema\u201d in his post-match analysis on CBS Sports.<\/p>\n \u201cRest in peace to anyone who missed this game,\u201d the former France talisman said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is football at its absolute peak. Pure cinema. End to end, no breaks, no breathing space\u2026 you blink and you miss something.\u201d<\/p>\n It took in-form striker Harry Kane 17 minutes to open the scoring in the match as he converted a penalty for Bayern Munich against the titleholders, but the home side equalised seven minutes later, courtesy of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia\u2019s one-on-one move against Josip Stanisic. The Bayern rightback was left dumbfounded as Kvaratskhelia pulled off a stunning curling shot inside the right post of the German team\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n The scintillating action did not relent as both teams kept pushing for the lead, with Joao Neves heading in from a corner in the 33rd minute, to the delight of the home fans.<\/p>\n Bayern\u2019s second goal, which made things even eight minutes later, was another one for the highlights reel as Michael Olise made up for an earlier missed opportunity to waltz through the PSG defence and thump the ball into the net.<\/p>\n Henry, who is counted as one of football\u2019s all-time greats, said Olise was a \u201cspecial\u201d player.<\/p>\n \u201cYou watch Nuno Mendes [PSG leftback], who\u2019s been locking up wingers all season, suddenly struggling with Michael Olise\u2026 That boy is special,\u201d the former Arsenal stalwart said.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the other side, Luis Diaz just doesn\u2019t stop running\u2026 I don\u2019t think [Achraf] Hakimi caught his breath once. Then Kvara [Kvaratskhelia]\u2026 everything he touches looks dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201c[Ousmane] Dembele playing free, doing whatever he wants\u2026 it\u2019s ridiculous. And in the middle, Vitinha controlling everything like it\u2019s his own playground.\u201d<\/p>\n There was one more goal left in the first half, when Ballon d\u2019Or winner Dembele converted from the spot to push his team back in front.<\/p>\n The action from the first half alone was enough to convince Bastian Schweinsteiger that he was witnessing the \u201cbest Champions League match in years\u201d.<\/p>\n The former long-term Bayern player posted a selfie in the German club\u2019s shirt as he awaited the second half.<\/p>\n Eleven minutes into the second half, Kvaratskhelia was on the scoring sheet again as the Georgian forward found himself open in front of goal from a Hakimi pass and sent the ball flying into the net.<\/p>\n PSG\u2019s lead was consolidated by Dembele two minutes later, as he bamboozled two Bayern defenders to squeeze the ball between them and into Manuel Neuer\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n Former Manchester United defender said the game was the perfect display of one-on-one football, with four wingers running the opposing defenders ragged at either end of the pitch.<\/p>\n The visitors were able to pull two goals back, the first one from Dayot Upamecano off a free-kick header in the 65th minute, and Luis Diaz in the 68th, as the Colombian balanced a perfect long-range pass from Kane to slot in from close range.<\/p>\n While the last 25 minutes did not produce any more goals, both teams got close and enthralled those lucky enough to watch the action unfold in real time.<\/p>\n \u201cThis game had everything,\u201d Henry said at the end of the match. \u201cHonestly\u2026 this should\u2019ve been the Champions League final. Because right now, these are the most exciting teams in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n Players and coaches from both teams agreed with Henry, with player of the match Dembele saying it was an \u201cincredible match\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo great teams that attack, who don\u2019t question themselves \u2013 it\u2019s the Champions League semifinal, we know Bayern are a great team, we are too,\u201d he said after the match.<\/p>\n PSG head coach Luis Enrique was exhausted just watching it from the sidelines.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so tired, and I didn\u2019t run a single kilometre,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I don\u2019t know how the players are feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n The French team\u2019s defender Marquinhos told Canal+ he was \u201cliving the dream\u201d in the thriller.<\/p>\n \u201cAll football lovers, I\u2019m sure they revelled in watching the match,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the pitch, it was a real pleasure to play in this match. We dream about matches like this all year long, throughout all our childhood\u2026 These are two teams with this mentality of never giving up, to always push, to always go forward.\u201d<\/p>\n For Bayern\u2019s leading goalscorer of the season, Kane, it was a match-up between two top-rated football teams.<\/p>\n \u201cYou saw two high-level teams in attacking play and transition,\u201d Kane told Prime.<\/p>\n \u201cWe fought and we clawed and we\u2019re back in the tie\u2026 We go to the Allianz with nothing to lose; we\u2019re at our best when we\u2019re intense and physical. It\u2019ll be who takes their moments next week, with the crowd behind us, we hope that can push us over the line.\u201d<\/p>\n The second leg of the semifinal will be played in Munich on Wednesday, when the team leading on aggregate score at the end of the match will qualify for the May 30 final in Hungary.<\/p>\n A football match that produced five goals in the first half, four more in the second, and delivered the most exhilarating end-to-end action seen in recent years is being hailed as the greatest UEFA Champions League semifinal of all time. Even before kickoff, the Paris Saint-Germain vs Bayern Munich semifinal on Tuesday was predicted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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\u2018This game had everything\u2019<\/h2>\n
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\u2018We dream about matches like this\u2019<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"