During the Final Four in Cologne, Paris Saint-Germain lost after a tight encounter against the Polish team on Saturday.
There will be no second Champions League final for Paris Saint-Germain. Beaten by Kielce, the French champion lost again at the semi-final stage (24-25), Saturday June 17, in Cologne. Despite a good resistance, PSG chased the score for too long and lacked lucidity, especially in the last moments, to achieve the feat. In a match where the defenses mostly took over the attacks, Andreas Wolff, the Kielce goalkeeper, was the most decisive at the end of the match, to disgust the Parisians.
It took a last stoppage of the German goal against Elohim Prandi, to seal the fate of this semi-final, but Paris certainly lost it much earlier. Entering the match with the defensive intensity required for such a match, the Parisians gradually let go of the ballast to return to the locker room trailing by two goals (14-16), morale at half mast after conceding two “kung -fu” and missed a seven-yard throw late in the period.
Prandi brought his madness, but Wolff upset him
If the players of coach Raul Gonzalez have succeeded in cutting the relationship between Alex Dujshebaev (6 goals) and Artsem Karalek (5 goals), very fluid at the start of the match, they fell on a bone in the cages. Never replaced by his coach, Andres Wolff released the perfect match to allow his people to win. Solid at the start of the match, and powerless when the Parisians returned in the middle of the second period, like his team, he above all released two decisive parades against Luc Steins and Elohim Prandi, to decide the fate of the match. Author of 12 saves in 35 shots suffered, he is one of the main reasons for the success of his team.
Injured in the left hand and long uncertain for this Final Four, Elohim Prandi came into play in the second period to bring a little pep and uncertainty in attack. A failed bet at first, Paris not scoring a single goal for 8’43”, then almost a winner. Because if Prandi did not manage to snatch the extension, seeing his last shot repelled, he gave life to his team. Badly adjusted in shooting (4/10), he caught the attention of the Polish defense, freeing up space for his teammates, in a closed match.
For Paris, the disappointment is great, but at the end of a season where few people expected them to have such a party in the European Cup, the results will remain positive after two exercises concluded outside the Final Four. The Parisians will still try to clinch third place in the small final on Sunday (3:15 p.m.), against Barcelona.