It was the last minute of stoppage time and Mats Hummels was doing what he does best: leading.
Ousmane Dembele received possession 25 yards from goal and Hummels had his left arm outstretched, signaling Borussia Dortmund left-back Ian Maatsen to be aware of Achraf Hakimi on the Paris Saint-Germain right .
All the while, Hummels kept his eyes on Dembele.
When the PSG winger prepared to shoot before cutting inside, Hummels planted his left foot and, unlike so many defenders in the modern era, never turned his back on the ball. Instead, he extended his right leg – he was now arms outstretched – and stopped Dembélé in his tracks.
Another PSG attack was repelled by a central defender who won seven duels (ranked first common) and four tackles (first common) against PSG in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final second leg on Tuesday evening, and also made 10 clearances (first) and three interceptions (first). Oh, and he also scored the only goal of the match, to give Dortmund a 1-0 win on the night and a 2-0 victory on aggregate.
Aged 35, Hummels was the standout player on both legs, earning him official man-of-the-match honors in Paris and Dortmund and taking the club that means so much to him into the third final of the Champions League in its history.
“Few people thought it was close possible,” Hummels said.
It’s quite a story and Hummels’ role in it – he is surely nominated for the Champions League team of the season – seems to have taken everyone by surprise.
“I have to mention Mats Hummels,” said Thierry Henry, the former Arsenal and Barcelona striker who now works as a pundit for CBS Sports, after Dortmund’s victory. “When he left Bayern Munich, everyone said: ‘He’s done.’ That’s it. The time is over for him. You have to give him a lot of credit. I would never have said that going back to Dortmund he would have played at this level now.
In many ways, though, this version of Hummels is exactly what Dortmund had in mind when they re-signed him from Bayern Munich for £35 million ($43.7 million) in the summer of 2019 .
Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke said Athleticism At the time, bringing back Hummels was about much more than adding an experienced player with an elite mentality.
“There’s also his superb aerial ability and quality on the ball: you’ll hardly find a central defender as present, always ready to win the ball and capable of playing high-risk passes from the back. They often open the game and create opportunities. It is exceptional, in that sense.
Hummels showed all this and more against PSG. There were old-fashioned tackling, typically flamboyant passing, brilliant defensive positioning to stifle danger and a front that seemed to have a magnetic attraction to the ball.
More than anything, Hummels looked like he was having fun.
How else do you explain the hops, skips and jumps he did before, during and after playing that magnificent pass with the outside of his foot to Karim Adeyemi in the first leg?
Let Mats Hummels pass 😮💨#UCL | 📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/Bz2cUmjYiM
– Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 1, 2024
It was a passage of play that started deep in his own half. As Dortmund goalkeeper Gregor Kobel faded out from the back, Hummels scanned and saw the space that had opened up towards the center circle.
In what looked like a role reversal, Hummels got past PSG winger Bradley Barcola…
…leaving him lying down…
…then drifted inside and beautifully swerved with his right foot towards Adeyemi on the Dortmund left.
The fact that both feet were off the ground after Hummels touched the ball added to the majesty of the pass. Only Hummels knows whether this was necessary from a technical point of view.
Anyway, it looked good.
The beauty of Hummels is that he has the brawn to match the brain, as Kylian Mbappe discovered last week in Dortmund. With his back to goal in his own half, Mbappe received a pass at his feet and made the fatal mistake of blindly turning inside.
Hummels, who was initially five meters from Mbappé, read the attacker’s intentions and, in football parlance, “took the fate.”
The German collected the ball, Mbappé rose into the air and the Westfalenstadion roared. Who said the tackle was dead?
Mbappe, to his credit, got up straight, but then got so disoriented that he did a full 360-degree turn to try to reestablish the direction PSG were kicking. At that point, Hummels had calmly headed the loose ball towards Julian Brandt.
💪@matshummels || #UCL pic.twitter.com/IdIEpLXAhL
– UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) May 6, 2024
This composure is a fundamental element of Hummels’ game. Naturally right-footed, he is quite comfortable cutting a left-footed ball to beat an aggressive opposition press, as he did several times against PSG in the first leg to free right-back Julian Ryerson from Dortmund.
Or, on the contrary, play a corner pass with his right foot to take out five PSG players, spot Brandt and launch an attack.
There is a lot to like about Hummels as a person and a footballer. A journalist’s dream because he loves to talk, he speaks English better than most English people and, what’s more, he has a sense of humor.
Full of life after Dortmund beat Atletico Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals a few weeks ago, Hummels was pleased to see two other Bundesliga clubs (Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen) progress to the semis. -European finals while Arsenal, Manchester City and West Ham United were eliminated.
“Happy harvest this week, my fellow farmers,” the German tweeted. The post went viral and Dortmund also got in on the act.
Hard day at work 🧑🌾 pic.twitter.com/THEKAzfaIN
– Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) April 19, 2024
Hummels, who is out of contract this summer, was trending again on Tuesday night, but this time it was purely down to the way he played on the pitch and the way he delivered the decisive moment of the match.
It seemed fitting that the corner from which Hummels scored was won thanks to some excellent attacking play from Nico Schlotterbeck, his fellow central defender. Schlotterbeck, who had his critics and lost his place in the German team, was also extremely impressive on both legs.
As for Hummels’ goal, the way he looked at Lucas Beraldo, his marker, just before heading home from a Brandt corner, almost made the 20-year-old PSG defender feel sorry for himself.
“A young center back against an experienced center back and he gets intimidated,” TNT Sports pundit Rio Ferdinand said.
It was Hummels’ fifth goal in the Champions League and it took the game away from PSG. “That’s what you train for: those moments,” Hummels said. “It gave us a bit of a break.”
Aside from surviving a penalty call for a foul on Dembélé, the only time Hummels looked uncomfortable in Paris was when Marco Reus, the only other survivor from the Dortmund team who lost to Bayern Munich in the Champions League final in 2013, interrupted a match. match interview by punching his teammate in the chest.
“He’s stronger than you think!” » said Hummels, starting.
The path to redemption awaits them both at Wembley next month.
GO FURTHER
Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final? It’s a great story that no one saw coming.
(Photo: ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images)