Breaking the silence beating a drum, his Bayern Munich jersey replaced by a “Champions of Europe'' T-shirt, Joshua Kimmich wanted to savor the scene of glory.
Two hours after setting up the goal that secured Bayern's sixth European Cup, Kimmich emerged from the tunnel to walk back onto the empty confetti-covered pitch where his team had beaten Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 last night.
Soon he was joined, sitting in the center circle, by David Alaba, the winners' medal around his bare chest, and Serge Gnabry in a Bayern hat, swigging from a bottle.
Before long the lights went out on the Stadium of Light.
In the near-darkness of the Lisbon stadium, the players remained in celebration and contemplation.
“When you win a title like this with brothers on the pitch,'' Kimmich had said shortly after the full-time whistle, “that's the maximum you can ask for.''
On a continent where more than 200,000 have died from the coronavirus, the longest and most disrupted of peacetime men's European football seasons ended in emptiness and near silence.
Just as it was for so much of a first Champions League final played without fans.
Only a few hundred people were allowed into the Benfica stadium, because of pandemic restrictions, to see PSG academy graduate Kingsley Coman head in the winner from Kimmich's cross in the 59th minute.
While Bayern won their first continental final since 2013, PSG have yet to lift the European Cup despite more than US$1 billion being spent on players in the nine years under Qatari ownership.
More than US$500 million was spent on Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Angel Di Maria, but PSG looked far from formidable or threatening against the Bavarian club that was more assured than the first-time European Cup finalists.
As the front three were frustrated in front of goal, it was instead a left winger who plays in Neymar's position, was born in Paris and started his career at PSG, who inflicted the blow.
It was Gnabry attacking down the right that unpicked the PSG defense before passing to Thomas Muller. The forward deftly clipped the ball back to Kimmich, who spotted Coman running unchecked into the penalty area.
The Frenchman netted a 43rd goal of a perfect European campaign that has seen Bayern become the first team to win all 11 Champions League matches.
The win capped an incredible transformation this season under Hansi Flick, who emerged from the shadows in November, with a promotion to the top coaching job with Bayern fourth in the Bundesliga.
The European Cup will join the Bundesliga trophy – won for an eighth successive season _ and the German Cup at Bayern.
The season is now over – three months later than planned _ with Bayern a treble winner just as it was in 2013.
Bayern joins deposed champion Liverpool as six-time champions of Europe, only behind AC Milan (seven) and Real Madrid (13). It was the first final to end 1-0 since Real Madrid beat Juventus in 1998 which was also the last final to feature teams who qualified as domestic champions.
A night when PSG fans hoped to party on the Champs-Elysees ended with dozens clashing with French riot police. Back in Lisbon, when the final whistle blew, Neymar was in tears, embraced by rival Alaba.
PSG's footballing superstars were subdued. Not that PSG lacked chances to take the lead at a final that should have been played in Istanbul in May, rather than the Portuguese capital in late August when seasons usually begin not end.
Only the presence of “Istanbul'' on the match ball that Neymar struck at Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer in the 18th was a reminder here of the pandemic-enforced change of location.
Neymar did spark the move that saw Ander Herrera and Di Maria combine but the Argentine could only strike over. And an interchange between Herrera and Mbappe before halftime ended with a weak shot from the French forward.
It was a downbeat way to end a season that saw PSG sweep a fourth domestic treble in six seasons that underlines why it is on Europe's biggest stage where the team now has to prove its quality.
PSG did manage to prevent Robert Lewandowski claiming a 56th goal of the season. -AP
