Sancho sparkles as Dortmund seize initiative
Borussia Dortmund 1
PSG 0
Manchester United fans, who may have spent the last three years wondering why their club spent £73m on Jadon Sancho, saw a glimpse of the answer in Dortmund on Wednesday night as the on-loan winger turned in a brilliant performance in his team’s narrow Champions League semi-final first leg win.
PSG showed enough, particularly after the break, to suggest they have enough to still possibly make the Wembley final at the start of next month.
But Sancho looked every inch an elite European superstar, with the only surprise being that his prodigious efforts did not create a goal for his club.
When Dortmund did take the lead after 36 minutes, it was a route one goal: Centre-half to centre-forward, one touch and in, although, to the credit of Nico Schlotterbeck and German international Niclas Fullkrug, the quality in their technique was very much of an elite level.
The perfectly-weighted pass was met 25 yards out by the striker whose controlling touch was equally perfect, as was the finish from just inside the box, across the body of goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
That lead could have doubled just a few minutes later when Fullkrug’s deft touch set up a shot for Marcel Sabitzer whose close-range strike was too close to Donnarumma, who blocked well.
Sancho, up against Portugal international left-back Nuno Mendes, was certainly relishing the challenge; a player unrecognisable from the shell of a man whose United career appears to have been brought to a close by Erik ten Hag.
The winger showed great early footwork in the area to beat his marker and set up Sabitzer whose effort was well blocked by the keeper.
It had been a curiously subdued first half display from the French side but one that was about
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