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| Kylian Mbappe of Paris Saint-Germain looks on as Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting & Thomas Muller of Bayern Munich celebrate during the UEFA Champions League round of 16 leg two match between FC Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain at Allianz Arena on March 8, 2023 in Munich, Germany. |
Bayern Munich cruised into the quarter-finals of the Champions League as they condemned Paris St-Germain to another last-16 exit.
Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting swept home just after the hour mark for the hosts against his former club, with substitute Serge Gnabry adding the gloss to a professional display late on.
PSG have now been eliminated from the competition at this stage in five of their previous seven campaigns and this represented another dismal failure for the Ligue 1 leaders and their under-pressure head coach Christophe Galtier.
Despite boasting a collection of stars, the Parisians not only failed to score over two legs but were saved the embarrassment of a four or five-goal aggregate defeat by a VAR decision and offside flag ruling out an earlier Choupo-Moting header and Sadio Mane’s stoppage-time effort.
Six-time European champions Bayern had begun the evening nervously defending a one-goal first-leg lead and guarding against the dual threat posed by Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi.
However, while PSG’s star forward line sporadically threatened early on neither was given the time or space to inflict any damage on a disciplined and efficient Bayern side, who ran out comfortable winners.
The only major concern for the German champions arrived in the first period and was entirely self-inflicted.
Goalkeeper Yann Sommer – who was caught in possession by Achraf Hakimi – presented visiting midfielder Vitinha with an open goal but defender Matthijs de Ligt made a superb sliding intervention for the home side.
The draw for the last eight of the competition takes place on 17 March in Nyon, Switzerland.
