A stoppage-time goal by forward Ousmane Dembélé earned Paris St Germain a 1-0 win over AS Monaco in the French Super Cup on Sunday as the Ligue 1 champions lifted the trophy for the third consecutive season.
Record 13-time winners PSG, who faced last season’s Ligue 1 runners-up Monaco after the Parisians had won both the league and the French Cup, won the competition for the 11th time in the last 12 years.
In a lively encounter at Doha’s Stadium 974, made from 974 recycled shipping containers for the 2022 World Cup, PSG had 27 chances — nine of them on target — without breaking the deadlock.
But Dembélé ensured the game did not go to penalties when he sealed the win for the French champions two minutes into injury time, netting inside the far post after Fabián Ruiz fed him with a neat pass across the face of the goal.
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Summer signing Désiré Doué was close to giving PSG the lead in the ninth minute but hit the bar while Lee Kang-In was denied by Monaco goalkeeper Philipp Köhn with an effort from distance in first-half stoppage time.
Dembélé and Vitinha also tested Köhn in the opening 45 minutes while Monaco’s Maghnes Akliouche and Takumi Minamino forced Gianluigi Donnarumma into saves, with the PSG keeper returning to the side after recovering from a face injury.
No goals were scored in the first half of a French Super Cup for the first time since 2010 when Marseille beat PSG 5-4 on penalties after the match ended goalless.
PSG, who beat Nantes and Toulouse in the previous two editions, won 4-2 at Monaco last month in Ligue 1 with Dembélé scoring a second-half brace.
Four-time winners Monaco last lifted the trophy in 2000. They were runners-up in 2017 and 2018, losing both times to PSG.
PSG return to league action next Sunday when they host St Etienne while Monaco visit lowly Nantes on Friday.
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