Dortmund beats PSG 1-0 to reach Champions League final. Mbappe can't pull off comeback

PARIS (AP) — London’s calling, but not for Kylian Mbappé.

When Borussia Dortmund’s players rushed over to their fans wearing yellow “London 24” T-shirts and joined in the celebrations after knocking out Paris Saint-Germain to reach the Champions League final on Tuesday, Mbappé had long left the field.

Wembley Stadium on June 1 is the final stop on Dortmund’s quest for the Champions League trophy, by which time Mbappé will have played his last game for PSG having failed to win the trophy the club’s cash-rich Qatari owners so crave.

Central defender Mats Hummels headed Dortmund into the final as the German team won 1-0 at PSG.

Moments after Warren Zaïre-Emery missed an open goal for PSG, Hummels rose unchallenged to head in Julian Brandt's corner from the left in the 50th minute.

Dortmund advanced 2-0 on aggregate and largely contained Mbappé, who is leaving at the end of the season.

PSG exerted late pressure.

Goalkeeper Gregor Kobel palmed away Mbappé's low shot, then pushed Mbappé’s deflected close-range effort onto the crossbar with a superb one-handed save. The Parc des Princes crowd groaned when midfielder Vitinha’s thumping 25-meter strike rattled the woodwork.

Coach Edin Terzić's team will play either record 14-time champion Real Madrid or six-time winner Bayern Munich on June 1 at Wembley Stadium. Madrid and Bayern drew 2-2 in the first leg and play on Wednesday.

“Extremely proud. I’m very happy,” Terzić said. “We beat a team like PSG two times and we again kept a clean sheet. We started really well and kept them away from the goal.”

Dortmund is on course for its second Champions League trophy after winning in 1997 and a third European trophy, having won the now defunct UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1966. Dortmund also reached the Champions League final in 2013, losing to Bayern.

“Indescribable. After more than 10 years, I am in the final with Borussia again,” said Marco Reus, Dortmund's veteran midfielder who is leaving the team after this season. “How we won the game, no one will ask tomorrow. Shots against the post won’t matter tomorrow.”

For PSG, it's another season ending without raising the trophy its cash-rich Qatari owners have chased after by spending huge amounts on star players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Neymar, Lionel Messi and Mbappé. PSG lost its only Champions League final in 2020 to Bayern.

“Efficiency, that’s what we were missing,” PSG captain Marquinhos said. “We should have defended better. They scored from a corner and a counter-attack (in the first leg). We created more chances but they won both games.”

As Dortmund's players celebrated, Mbappé looked dejected as he trudged for the last time in a Champions League game wearing a PSG jersey. He is widely expected to join Madrid.

Moments before Dortmund’s goal, Zaïre-Emery somehow hit the post from two meters out after Gonçalo Ramos flicked on Mbappé’s cross from the left.

On Hummels' goal, PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma again did not move off his line to claim the ball, having not done so when Barcelona scored on a corner from the left in the first leg of the quarterfinals.

Coach Luis Enrique’s players seemed nervous, playing cautiously and defending too deeply in the first half, allowing Dortmund to settle into a comfortable rhythm.

Mbappé was ineffective in attack when PSG lost the first leg and, despite their speed, Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé struggled to find space behind a well-organized Dortmund defense with midfielder Emre Can offering good protection.

It took 30 minutes before Mbappé and Zaïre-Emery freed Dembélé on the right of the penalty area, but he failed to hit the target.

Speedy left winger Karim Adeyemi did so for Dortmund five minutes later when a rapid counter-attack exposed PSG’s defense, but Donnarumma rescued PSG with a fine low save.

Hummel’s goal at least woke up PSG’s attack, but Ramos missed the target when well-placed either side of a stinging shot from left back Nuno Mendes hitting the left post.

Dembélé then cut inside Hummels, who was perhaps unfortunate not to concede a penalty midway through the second half. Referee Daniele Orsato awarded a free kick.

PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi pointed to the amount of times PSG hit the post or crossbar over both legs.

But in reality PSG again fell short, despite boasting one of the world’s best players in Mbappé.

PSG only qualified for the knockout stage in the last round of group games, losing at Newcastle and AC Milan and finishing second behind Dortmund. Overall, PSG lost five games in the competition.

Mbappé's last home game for PSG — which has already clinched the French league title — will be Sunday against Toulouse, and his last game for the club May 25 in the French Cup final against Lyon.

In Lille and not London.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

PSG's head coach Luis Enrique, left, and Dortmund's head coach Edin Terzic during the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, France, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

Borussia Dortmund players celebrates at the end of the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, France, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Borussia Dortmund players celebrate at the end of the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, France, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Borussia Dortmund players celebrate at the end of the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, France, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

PSG's Ousmane Dembele, left, passes the ball past Dortmund's Ian Maatsen during the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, France, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

PSG's Marquinhos, centre, and PSG's Warren Zaire-Emery, right, react during the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, France, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

PSG's Kylian Mbappe touches his nose during the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, France, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Dortmund's Mats Hummels, center, celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, France, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Dortmund's Mats Hummels, right, scores his side's opening goal during the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, France, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Dortmund's Mats Hummels, right, scores his side's opening goal during the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, France, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

LONDON (AP) — The host of a news conference about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition fight wryly welcomed journalists last week to the “millionth” press briefing on his court case.

Deborah Bonetti, director of the Foreign Press Association, was only half joking. Assange’s legal saga has dragged on for well over a decade but it could come to an end in the U.K. as soon as Monday.

Assange faces a hearing in London's High Court that could end with him being sent to the U.S. to face espionage charges, or provide him another chance to appeal his extradition.

The outcome will depend on how much weight judges give to reassurances U.S. officials have provided that Assange's rights won't be trampled if he goes on trial.

Here's a look at the case:

Assange, 52, an Australian computer expert, has been indicted in the U.S. on 18 charges over Wikileaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents in 2010.

Prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He faces 17 counts of espionage and one charge of computer misuse. If convicted, his lawyers say he could receive a prison term of up to 175 years, though American authorities have said any sentence is likely to be much lower.

Assange and his supporters argue he acted as a journalist to expose U.S. military wrongdoing and is protected under press freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Among the files published by WikiLeaks was video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.

“Julian has been indicted for receiving, possessing and communicating information to the public of evidence of war crimes committed by the U.S. government,” his wife, Stella Assange, said. “Reporting a crime is never a crime.”

U.S. lawyers say Assange is guilty of trying to hack the Pentagon computer and that WikiLeaks’ publications created a “grave and imminent risk” to U.S. intelligence sources in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While the U.S. criminal case against Assange was only unsealed in 2019, his freedom has been restricted for a dozen years.

Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 and was granted political asylum after courts in England ruled he should be extradited to Sweden as part of a rape investigation in the Scandinavian country.

He was arrested by British police after Ecuador’s government withdrew his asylum status in 2019 and then jailed for skipping bail when he first took shelter inside the embassy.

Although Sweden eventually dropped its sex crimes investigation because so much time had elapsed, Assange has remained in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison while the extradition battle with the U.S. continues.

His wife said his mental and physical health have deteriorated behind bars.

“He’s fighting to survive and that’s a daily battle,” she said.

A judge in London initially blocked Assange’s transfer to the U.S. in 2021 on the grounds he was likely to kill himself if held in harsh American prison conditions.

But subsequent courts cleared the way for the move after U.S. authorities provided assurances he wouldn’t experience the severe treatment that his lawyers said would put his physical and mental health at risk.

The British government authorized Assange's extradition in 2022.

Assange's lawyers raised nine grounds for appeal at a hearing in February, including the allegation that his prosecution is political.

The court accepted three of his arguments, issuing a provisional ruling in March that said Assange could take his case to the Court of Appeal unless the U.S. guaranteed he would not face the death penalty if extradited and would have the same free speech protections as a U.S. citizen.

The U.S. provided those reassurances three weeks later, though his supporters are skeptical.

Stella Assange said the “so-called assurances” were made up of “weasel words.”

WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said the judges had asked if Assange could rely on First Amendment protections.

“It should be an easy yes or no question,” Hrafnsson said. “The answer was, ‘He can seek to rely on First Amendment protections.’ That is a ‘no.’ So the only rational decision on Monday is for the judges to come out and say, ‘This is not good enough.’ Anything else is a judicial scandal.”

If Assange prevails, it would set the stage for an appeal process likely to further drag out the case.

If an appeal is rejected, his legal team plans to ask the European Court of Human Rights to intervene. But his supporters fear Assange could possibly be transferred before the court in Strasbourg, France, could halt his removal.

“Julian is just one decision away from being extradited,” his wife said.

Assange, who hopes to be in court Monday, has been encouraged by the work others have done in the political fight to free him, his wife said.

If he loses in court, he still may have another shot at freedom.

President Joe Biden said last month that he was considering a request from Australia to drop the case and let Assange return to his home country.

Officials have no other details but Stella Assange said it was “a good sign” and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the comment was encouraging.

FILE - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being taken from court, where he appeared on charges of jumping British bail seven years ago, in London, Wednesday May 1, 2019. Assange faces what could be his final court hearing in England over whether he should be extradited to the United States to face spying charges. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)