Final in Portugal! FC Bayern Women thrashed Paris Saint-Germain 5-0 in the semi-finals of the World Sevens Football tournament, with a particularly strong performance in the second half. It was another dominant victory for the Munich girls after wins over Manchester City (3-1), Ajax (4-2) and FC Rosengård (4-0) on Matchdays 1 and 2 of the new seven-a-side competition. Manchester United, who beat Manchester City 2-0 in the other semi, now await in the final at 21:00 CEST on Friday night – live and free to watch on streaming service DAZN.
Jovana Damnjanović: ‘We’re looking forward to the final!’
“We’ve developed a great atmosphere within the team over the last two or three years,” said Jovana Damnjanović. “We show that every day – and the new players also notice that there’s a special atmosphere here. We’re just playing without pressure here in Portugal and enjoying it. You never normally have that as FC Bayern in a competition. We’ve got used to the 7-v-7 format really quickly and it shows that all of us can play really good football. We saw that particularly in the semi-final now. We’re looking forward to the final!”
Bayern went into the semi-final as group winners against Group 2 runners-up PSG. The French side had suffered the narrowest of defeats to Manchester United on Thursday night after extra time and sudden-death penalties.
Bayern get going
This encounter was considerably more one-sided. The initial feeling out in the first half lasted 10 minutes, with Bayern goalkeeper Ena Mahmutovic called into action to save Griedge Mbock’s effort and then claim the resulting corner. But then the German double winners let rip and took the lead just before the break. The strong Bayern press forced Paris goalkeeper Katarzyna Kiedrzynek into a mistake and Damnjanović headed the failed clearance into the French net. And they even managed to make it 2-0 before the half was done: Mahmutovic played a low pass out wide to Dallmann, who skilfully let it run through to Damnjanović, and the Serbian found Maria Plattner, who found the net.
With a two-goal cushion, Bayern really enjoyed themselves in the second half. Momoko Tanikawa showed great skill to bring the ball down, nutmeg Paris‘ Océane Hurtré and blast the ball into the roof of the net. After a combination involving Damnjanović, Plattner and Zadrazil, the latter slotting into the bottom left corner, the score was 4-0. The Munich girls weren’t done with the dazzling attacking football, though. Pernille Harder’s cross was converted by Tanikawa to make it 5-0.
The final between Bayern and Manchester United kicks off at 21:00 CEST, after PSG and Manchester City have contested the third-place match at 19:30 CEST.
Watch the rolling free live stream of the tournament here:
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