Robert Lewandowski is always the last Barça player to take the field. The Polish forward greeted Mbappé in the tunnel and then was decisive when the game was at the mercy of Barça’s order. He didn’t score, but he was the most annoying player for the PSG rearguard. Luis Enrique had placed the two Lucas, Beraldo and Hernández, in the center of the defense. Lewandowski mistreated the couple especially in the first half when he made the best decisions for his team.
He carried out one of the jobs that are required of the “nines” of a lifetime. Every long ball that reached his vicinity he took it and facilitated the incorporations of Cancelo, Raphinha or Yamal. Barça’s goal came from his boots. Cubarsí found him in the center of the field and his maneuver unbalanced the French defense. He gave Yamal a free pass and, although he did not finish off the youth player’s effort, he prevented Donnaruma from allowing Raphinha to execute the Italian. Lewandowski had already left a warning before in the form of a header that did not find its way into the local goal because Nuno Mendes managed to get the ball out shortly before the goal line in another of the many errors that Donnaruma had.
Another of the Pole’s virtues was patience. There were actions in the first half and in the second in which he was the best option for his team, but his teammates did not find him. He continued to do his thing, in the Parc des Princes it wasn’t the goals, that was Raphinha’s doing. His clearest chance was a simple header that he failed to connect correctly, but that didn’t keep him from the goal. When the French were deep into injury time, he was the one who took possession of the ball so that the team did not have more trouble than it should have. His work was especially appreciated by his teammates and the coaching staff, as could be seen with the congratulations at the end of the match.
A match in which Lamine Yamal, at 16 years and 272 days old, became the youngest player to play in the Champions League quarterfinals. The youth player was one of the threats for PSG from the right wing in the first half. Yamal, who played one hour, erased from the historical list the 17 years that Lyon’s Frenchman Rayan Cherki had in 2020 when he played the same round.