Wendie Renard rises highest for Lyon and PSG are pushed aside once again

Paris Saint-Germain just cannot quite find a way to beat Lyon – but then nor can anyone else. Defeated on penalties in both French cup finals this season, beaten 1-0 in the only league game between the two, forced to watch the title handed over without getting the chance to play for a second time, they were again defeated by their rivals.

A solitary goal from the towering captain, Wendie Renard, a six-times winner of this competition, took Lyon to their fifth consecutive Champions League final, their ninth in 11 years.

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The last time Lyon lost a game in this competition was late 2014 but PSG get ever closer and this was far from easy. The final minutes of an even, edgy and often physical game, with both teams down to 10, were nervous. Lyon, though, are the ultimate competitors and they held on, violently happy at the end. They will face Wolfsburg on Sunday without the England striker Nikita Parris, sent off in the second half.

It had been a battle from the start, a neat first-minute nutmeg from Lucy Bronze suggesting comfort that never came. In fact, Lyon looked a little inhibited initially, although they did slowly start to move through the gears. PSG were pressing high, Kadadiatou Diani running from the left while Perle Morroni got forward on the other side. There were few chances though, just a dash from Sara Dabritz that saw Sakina Karshaoui hurriedly hooking clear. And step by step, Lyon edged up the pitch, beginning with Parris’s deflected shot fading wide.

Much of it was led by Delphine Cascarino. Too quick to be caught, the most startling glimpse of her pace came when she somehow reached Sara Björk Gunnarsdottír’s pass, getting to the byline in time and pulling the ball across the area. Oh, so quiet in this huge, empty arena, as it went by begging to be finished, there was a squeal from a member of Lyon’s staff in the stands.

Not long afterwards, Cascarino sent a volley spinning wide. Next, she burned up the right and produced a superb cross for Majri Amel, who could not get over it. And then she won the free-kick from which Lyon should have led. Dzsenifer Maroszsan’s superb in-swinger dropped perfectly for Gunnarsdottír by the six-yard box, only for her header to go wide.

That it had come from a dead-ball fitted the pattern: it was tight, it was tense, and the foul count was rising. At one point, Parris appealed to the referee for protection, later getting booked for another, not entirely unjustified, complaint. It would prove costly. PSG’s Nadia Nadim, meanwhile, was fortunate to escape a second yellow.

As the second half began Amel and Grace Geyoro briefly confronted each other. And soon after, Ramona Buchanan appeared to be held back in the area. There was a nice run from Marie-Antoinette Katoto and neat footwork from Ramona Bachmann, but 15 minutes passed without real incident, then 20.

Increasingly, it seemed a single moment would decide it. And so it proved, beginning with Bronze setting off on a superb run that was ended by Geyoro. Her second yellow left PSG a player down and from the free-kick, beautifully delivered by Amel, Renard leapt to head in her 103rd Lyon goal in her 19th Champions League semi-final game.

PSG were given hope when Parris, pressing hard, unnecessarily brought down the PSG keeper Christiane Endler. The striker left with her head in hands, aware that she would not be the final. But Lyon will be. A Diani cross was headed away by Bronze, Dabritz had to be blocked inside the box, and Katoto tried to scramble through as time slipped away and PSG pushed, but at the end it was Lyon who were still standing – almost six years on.