All hell broke loose once the final whistle had sounded. The team stormed over to their fans. There were 2,000 of them – 80,000 fewer than in the first leg, but they could be heard throughout the game and played their part in Borussia Dortmund reaching the biggest game that exists in football for the third time in the club's history: the final of the UEFA Champions League against Real Madrid or Bayern Munich at Wembley Stadium in London on 1 June.

It was one of those rare moments in which BVB boss Hans-Joachim Watzke was able to shed the mantle of responsibility in favour of the bigger picture and give his emotions free rein. On the sidelines, he hugged every player he could get his hands on. "Last year we came within a whisker of the league title; now we're in the Champions League final," Watzke stated later on in front of the cameras. And he gave Edin Terzic a firm embrace: "It's great what he's doing. We know what we have in each other." A cup winner in 2021, a league runner-up in 2023 and a Champions League finalist in 2024 – all that in two tenures and a period totalling only two and a half years.

The coach had "Edin Terzic" chants directed at him by the supporters. "These are the pictures, this is what we do it for," he later said in a TV interview, in reference to the celebrating and cheering fans: "We would've liked to create a similar picture in our stadium last year. That unfortunately ended up slightly differently, and then our fans were there for us. Today we were able to give them something back. There's pure gratitude, pure relief, pure joy and a great, great, great deal of pride."

His team controlled the match for long stretches and did not allow PSG to unleash the power that their world-class attacking players are capable of. Mats Hummels was the hero of the evening with his headed goal and numerous sliding interventions in front of and behind the defence while Julian Ryerson, who never let Kylian Mbappé into the game, was the secret match-winner. But that applied to everyone else too – from the hard-working Füllkrug to the unbeatable Kobel, who turned Mbappé's shot onto the crossbar with a monster save in the 86th minute. Paris might have registered a total of 31 shots (Dortmund six), but only five of those 31 attempts were on target and three more hit the post or crossbar.

In the changing rooms, they stood on tables and benches. Unadulterated, pure joy. Euphoric, full of adrenaline. The celebrations continued that night in the hotel, a former monastery. Friends and families of the players came to the "Domaine Reine Margot". There was pizza, burgers and beer. Even that is allowed sometimes…
Boris Rupert