The French winger made up for mixed chances late in the injury time to hand PSG their third consecutive French Super Cup title.
Ousmane Dembélé scored a stunning late winner as Paris Saint-Germain clinched the Tropheé Des Champions in Doha’s Stadium 974.
The French winger made up for missed chances early on to hand the Parisian club their third consecutive — and 12th overall — French Super Cup title on Sunday.
Changes in the second half paid off for Luis Enrique as both Goncalo Ramos and Fabian Ruiz made important contributions to Dembele’s goal in front of more than 39,682 supporters.
Enrique’s side, which has been unbeaten in the French league so far this season, had to leave it late, partly due to their own problems in finishing as well as a pragmatic defensive performance from Monaco.
PSG were the more dominant side from early on. Every time the ball was distributed to the flanks everyone spurred forward to overwhelm the Monaco defence.
The first major chance of the night fell for PSG, after forcing defensive errors. Monaco centre-back Thilo Kehrer could not read the goalkeeper Philipp Köhn’s pass, allowing the young Désiré Doué to aim at the goal in the ninth minute. With just the keeper to beat, his shot hit the crossbar and Monaco were spared.
Expectedly, the right side was the busier one for PSG, and Lee Kang-in and Achraf Hakimi advanced to create chances with clever movement. Ousmane Dembele was the main benefactor of this tactic, who often found the ball in the middle with the cutbacks.
It was in similar sequences that Dembele was at the end of two chances in the 19th and four minutes thereafter, yet the Frenchman’s shots could not pose much trouble for Köhn.
By the time Monaco had their first shot on goal in the 26th minute, PSG already had six, albeit none of them were as threatening. Vitinha narrowly missed the far post from around 25 yards out — the most threatening of chances hence came in the 30th minute.
Monaco’s Japanese star Takumi Minamono was at the end of a promising chance in the 43rd minute, which was well dealt with by Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Here and there, Monaco’s centre-back duo of Kehrer and Mohammed Salisu were made to work by the forward line of Doue, Dembele and Lee Kang-in, yet they did fairly well to clear virtually anything that came in the box. The latter of the three made clever movements from the half-spaces, yet failed to hit the target in two quick breaks after half-time.
It was Hakimi who lit up PSG’s second half with his advanced runs in the box, bringing the noise to what PSG President Nasser Al-Khelaifi called the club’s “second home” before the match.
The PSG die-hards just behind the goal kept their chants as Dembele-Hakimi’s engine worked well. It was the Moroccan who nearly scored in both occasions, yet the Monaco goalkeeper was omnipresent to keep his side on the charge. A shot in the 57th minute got blocked, whereas Köhn pushed another from a close range for a corner 15 minutes later.
It was in between those two occasions that Enrique pulled out his trump cards in Ramos, Ruiz, and winger Bradley Barcola. Although the largest of gasps for PSG came when Monaco got close to scoring with just one minute of regular time left, Monaco’s Jordan Teze failed to connect and ended up giving away an easy save to Donnarumma.
While Ramos’ shot in the 91st minute, cleared by Monaco full-back Caio Henrique from just outside of the goal line, looked like the last missed chance of the night, Dembélé rose to the occasion just a minute later.
Arriving at the far post to meet Ruiz’s low cross, the winger tapped the ball into an empty net, after the goalkeeper was pulled out of the equation by Ramos in the middle.
The now 27-year-old winger, who was forced to watch his French national team lose a crucial final against Argentina two years ago in Qatar, made sure he did not end up on the losing side this time. The occasion is not as big – but Dembele and PSG will take it.
