Nearing the end of a most strange and unusual season

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/08/2020 (2197 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s almost over.

When one of Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain lift the European Cup and mark the end of this most unusual, trying and improvised of seasons, it will have been 426 days since the schedule began. Andorra’s Santa Coloma beat San Marino’s Tre Penne that June afternoon in 2019. There were 35 fans in attendance. Who would have thought that’d be 35 more than will be inside Lisbon’s Estadio da Luz for Sunday’s Champions League Final.

Who would have thought the final would be in Lisbon at all? It was supposed to take place at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, which will instead host the 2021 match, coronavirus-willing.

Football — like all sports — is a small thing in many contexts. But it’s also enormous. It’s amplified. Its storylines seem somehow bigger, more important, defiant. We cling to them.

Who would have thought a 19-year-old Canadian would be about to start in a Champions League Final? Or that, only a week ago, he’d have contributed to a performance so dominant it would cause the dismantling of Barcelona and maybe even drive Lionel Messi out of the Catalan capital? But Alphonso Davies — our Alphonso Davies — was a part of that, and on Sunday he’ll become just the third player from the CONCACAF region to line up for club football’s most prestigious fixture.

Who would have thought that Olympique Lyonnais, the seventh-best team in Ligue 1 and having played just a single competitive match since March, could have defeated Manchester City? Or Juventus, for that matter? But a pair of late goals from substitute striker Moussa Dembele put the Premier League runners-up to the sword, and they might have taken a 2-0 lead against Davies and Bayern in Wednesday’s semifinal had Memphis Depay not narrowly missed and Karl Toko Ekambi not hit the post. Would’ve, could’ve.

Speaking of underdogs, who would have thought Atalanta — one of European football’s feel-good stories of the campaign — would be in the Lisbon tournament at all? But an eye-popping eight goals in the Round of 16 against Valencia sent them to Portugal, and then they nearly sent PSG packing. It wasn’t until the 90th minute that Marquinhos cancelled out Mario Pasalic’s first-half opener, and then the heroics of Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting — formerly of Hamburg, Mainz and Stoke — confirmed a result that should have been inevitable but nearly wasn’t.

Even more than Atalanta, who would have thought that RB Leipzig would contest a Champions League semi-final just four years after winning promotion to the Bundesliga and 11 years after their founding? They did it without top scorer Timo Werner, who left the club ahead of their quarter-final after making a summer switch to Chelsea. In his absence it was 21-year-old United States international Tyler Adams who played the hero, scoring a late winner to eliminate Atletico Madrid, who had knocked out reigning champions Liverpool in the previous round. There is considerable excitement surrounding that country’s crop of up-and-coming footballers as well.

Maybe the only thing, the most normal thing, about these rushed few weeks of the Champions League is the final they produced.

Two big teams, each loaded with global superstars, will now bring the season to a close. Bayern, with Davies and playmaker Thomas Muller, goal machine and should-be Ballon d’Or winner (there won’t be one awarded for 2020) Robert Lewandowski and in-form forward Serge Gnabry will face Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Angel Di Maria and PSG’s array of attacking talent.

Since losing 2-1 at Borussia Monchengladbach in the first week of December and dropping to seventh in the Bundesliga, Bayern have gone undefeated in all competitions, winning both the German top flight and DFP-Pokal. They’ve outscored their opponents 51-10 post-lockdown and can complete a second treble in club history by beating PSG.

The Parisians, meanwhile, finished atop an abbreviated Ligue 1 for the seventh time in eight years and also claimed both French cups last month. Victory for them would deliver an unprecedented quadruple — a quintuple if we include the Trophee des Champions.

A Bayern-PSG Champions League Final is one we might have thought could happen all those 426 days ago. As a match-up, it represents a refreshingly normal conclusion to this most abnormal of seasons.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

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It’s almost over. Only, it isn’t.Two weeks ago Northern Ireland’s Linfield beat San Marino’s Tre Fiori 2-0 in Nyon. Next season is already underway.

jerradpeters@gmail.com

Twitter @JerradPeters