PSG and Bayern Munich served up a Footballing Spectacle. And We Are Grateful for it.

Has everyone managed to regain their senses, gather their bearings, and catch their breath once again?

Goodness me, what an absolute firecracker of a game that was last night! It felt like the Footballing Gods’ decided that today was the day to bestow upon us lay faithful the match that can be classified as the equivalent of showering “Manna from heaven”.

Last night was the night when Europe’s two front-running footballing superpowers collided on the pitch and turned into something that resembled part battlefield, part canvas, and part theater that was adorned by stars in every nook and crevice.

Parisian perfection met German grandeur. Luis Enrique’s elegant maestros met Vincent Kompany’s relentless mavericks. A final before the final was what this was christened as. And a 5-4 scoreline, which happened to be the highest-scoring semifinal in UEFA Champions League history just went on to punctuate the regality that was on display for the duration of the 90 minutes.

Normally, a 5-4 scoreline is indicative of a spartan tussle, replete with blood and gore, mess and chaos, and everything that is just adrenaline and unbridled recklessness. However, this one was anything but. There was class, order, and a beauty in the sequences of attacking as both sides took turn after turn to bamboozle, flummox, and mesmerize on the pitch.

And it wasn’t like there were sole protagonists. It felt like an act where every transition was led by a new lead actor at different times. The nonchalant Olise began proceedings. Every time he took the ball under his control, he resembled a feather-like brilliance that was just overpowered by the sheer audacity of his movement. 

There has been no rarer sight in world football than Nuno Mendes being made to chase shadows with alarming regularity. But that is exactly what Olise did. At times it felt like Mendes was just a hologram who was being bent to the whims and fancies of Olise’s feints and feet. His goal to make it 2-2 for Bayern represented the giant strides he has taken in such a short amount of time, with a strike that resembled the rocket-ship he carries on his back: turbocharged, yet so intricately beautiful.

However, this ballad of the Parc de Princes was started by a man who has been so scarily consistent that you can say it is as effortless as breathing. Harry Kane has been the poster-boy of brutal efficiency. Every action he makes is a spectrum of calculated precision followed by that machine-like efficiency as he scored his 54th goal of the season and then provided an assist that takes him to an astounding 61 goal contributions this season. 

Luis Diaz provided the final flourish for the Bavarians. While it still ended in heroic failure, his barnstorming runs and buccaneering industry still give Bayern a boxer’s chance of bouncing back in the tie next week. His touch, feint, and finish to make it 5-4 on a wildly pulsating stage in the game was an absolute thing of beauty, and it will be needed in abundance when they reconvene in Bavaria next Wednesday.

However, PSG had their own main characters too, and their class and swagger proved to be just enough on a night where there was greatness on just about every corner of the pitch.

If Olise was a dazzling and dizzying array of fairy-dust, Kvicha Kvaratskhelia played like an entity who was lost in the beauty of his own perfection. There is a certain allure in the way he slaloms across that field, his dribbling more of a ballerina’s pirouette than a pugilistic rope-a-dope. 

His first goal showcased everything that makes him so bewitchingly beautiful to watch. A slow and pleasant stroll so quickly turned into a swish of lightning where he ran at the Bayern defense before stroking the ball into the back of the net with the expertise that only he could conjure. His second goal was a punctuation mark on what was a virtuoso night of magnificence by the Georgian.

Joao Neves and Vitinha are metronomic masters in their own right. They buzzed around the pitch with a bee-like intensity and covered spaces like their lives depended on it. In attack, both slipped and slid in the faintest of spaces that kept them and their side ticking.

Neves, in particular, has an uncanny knack of being the tallest man in the room despite his short stature. His brilliantly-guided header to make it 2-1 on the night only went on to cement that burgeoning reputation.

And then there was Ousmane Dembele, the Ides of March himself, The time of the season where he begins to unleash the wrath of his precocious skill and talent in its fullest ebb. He started off with a miss that you would have to rub your eyes and look again given that he was virtually guaranteed to score that 1v1, but shanked it so wide that you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was him who did it.

However, it was only upwards from there as he then took the game by the scruff of its neck. A thumping penalty, a goal that had Neuer rooted to the spot like he seen Medusa, and a performance that befitted the title of Mr. Ballon d’or for the Frenchman.

At the end of it all, both managers shook hands and hugged at a spectacle befitting the gods, while promising more of the same in the return leg next week. 7 days feels like an eternity to watch this again.

PSG and Bayern Munich served up a Footballing Spectacle last night. And we are grateful for it.