Parisians Reach Consecutive UCL Finals: Bayern Munich vs PSG Semi-Final Recap

The last ticket to Budapest finds its owner in Munich! In the last semi-final game of the Champions League, Bayern Munich hosted Paris Saint-Germain in Allianz Arena after a thrilling first leg.

(Image credit to si.com)

After last week’s 9-goals thriller in Paris, the teams face each other in another highly-anticipated battle for the last spot to Budapest. The Bavarians have the home advantage in the second leg, but the Parisians are in possession of a score advantage, even if it’s a one-goal deficit. With the Bundesliga title already retained and the DFB-Pokal Final at the horizon, Bayern Munich would like to keep their treble hopes up by going through PSG in front of their fans. A similar situation applies to the Parisians. The most recent French Super Cup and UEFA Super Cup winners, would look forward to finishing the season on a high, with the quadruple still in reach. 

Coming into the second leg, both teams lost points in their leagues with draws. Bayern Munich have already been crowned champions, so that would be the least of their worries. However PSG haven’t completely fended off RC Lens yet, who still have a slight chance to dethrone the reigning champions of France. Other than Serge Gnabry’s long-term injury, the ex-Man City captain Vincent Kompany doesn’t have any missing player in his squad. The young German wonderkid Lennart Karl is considered as injury-doubt, but expected to be on the Bayern Munich bench regardless. On the other hand, Luis Enrique comes to Munich without one of their key players Achraf Hakimi, who joins Lucas Chevalier on the injury list.

So without further ado, let’s see the starting elevens of both teams:

Bayern Munich XI: Neuer - Stanišić - Upamecano - Tah - Laimer - Kimmich - Pavlović - Olise - Musiala - Díaz - Kane

PSG XI: Safonov - Zaïre-Emery - Marquinhos - Pacho - Mendes - Ruiz - Vitinha - Neves - Doué - Kvaratskhelia - Dembélé

Both teams made only one change compared to last week’s game. The hosts start with Konrad Laimer on the left-back instead of Alphonse Davies and PSG replaces the injured Hakimi with Fabián Ruiz in the midfield trio, as Zaïre-Emery takes the right-back position.

(Image credit to espn.com)

First Half

The game starts with a rapid early goal of the Parisians. Kvaratskhelia plays a quick one-two with Ruiz and dribbles towards the Bayern box. The Georgian crosses in towards Dembélé, who strikes the ball into the net and puts PSG in front in the 3rd minute. Bayern tries to answer quickly with Luis Díaz. The Colombian first set up Olise at the edge of the 6-yard-box, but Mendes denied the Frenchman with a good interception. He shoots himself a few minutes later, after losing his mark, but the ball goes just wide. Starting from the 23rd minute, the referee Joao Pinheiro became the centre of attention in Allianz Arena. Harry Kane’s close-call offside, Mendes and Neves getting away with potential handball scenarios have the Bavarians and their fans fuming against the referee’s decisions.

 Somewhere in those 10 minutes, Olise finds a space to shoot this time and once again, the ball goes over the bar with fine margins. It’s PSG’s turn to attack again with a set piece in the 33rd minute. Neves attempts to score a header, but Manuel Neuer stretches to deny the Portuguese midfielder. Towards the end of the first half, Musiala put one more effort to score before the halftime whistle. The German midfielder dribbles through the middle first and shoots, Safonov is there to parry it away and moments later, he tries his luck once again from another angle, but it becomes another failed attempt to find the equaliser. So, the first half ends 1-0 in favour of PSG, who also lead the tie 6-4.

(Image credit to fcbayern.com)

Second Half    

The momentum shifts in the second half to the Parisians, as they constantly bombard Bayern Munich goal, despite giving the ball possession away. Kvaratskhelia and Doué test the waters with shot after shot, but Neuer doesn’t break under pressure and deny them to extend the lead. Meanwhile, the Bavarians also get a chance to equalise in the 69th minute with Díaz, who gets a pass from the fresh-sub Alphonso Davies, but his volley is saved by Safonov. The Colombian finds himself on the ground 10 minutes later, however he sees a yellow after a furious reaction to the referee’s decision for a PSG freekick. 

Right after that, Kvaratskhelia creates a great opportunity by slipping past three defenders and dribbling into the Bayern box, but the Georgian winger fails to shoot on his own. Bayern Munich puts more pressure on the Parisians as the game reaches the closing stages. Lennart Karl and Konrad Laimer fail to get past the PSG defence, but the long search for an equaliser ends with none other than Harry Kane. The British international gets the ball from Davies in the box, turns around and places his shot to top bins in the 90+4th minute. However, the equaliser comes so late that Bayern Munich doesn’t have enough time left to search for a tie on aggregate, the game ends in a 1-1 draw and PSG wins 6-5 on aggregate.

(Image credit to kicker.de)

With this result, PSG makes it to back-to-back Champions League Finals, become the opponent of the Gunners and get to defend their title in Budapest. They gave the ball away to Bayern, but defended so well that it didn’t seem to make sense for their opponents to have the possession. An early goal and 38% ball possession was all PSG needed to get the final ticket in Munich. As a part of that stalwart defence, Nuno Mendes picks up the Man of the Match award after shutting down Michael Olise the entire game. The front three of the Parisians didn’t struggle to find spaces in the Bayern defence, but they had hard times in finishing touches. On the other hand, Bayern Munich wasn’t really on their best day. Despite their 62% ball possession, they couldn’t use the ball the way they usually do. Every desperate cross, almost every shot, whatever they threw at PSG came back to them. The Bavarians weren’t really clinical finishers either, they matched their opponents on shot attempts at 15, but only 5 of them found the target compared to PSG’s 8. The refereeing of the game may be questionable and could have changed things, but this Bayern Munich on the second leg didn’t seem like a match to the reigning champions.

(Image credit to lemonde.fr)

Long story short, PSG gets a draw against Bayern Munich to march towards the Champions League Final in Budapest. The Parisians, the reigning champions, will face the Gunners to defend their title. We’ll see which team is gonna lift the biggest club football trophy of Europe in three weeks time.

Article written by Emre Albas © Emre Albas 2026