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Cruz Traña: Paris Saint-Germain's road to the final

Paris Saint-Germain are in their first final and they did it the hard way: Shirley Cruz Traña looks back at their run which did for her former club and the reigning champions.

Shirley Cruz Traña celebrates putting Paris 2-0 up at Lyon
Shirley Cruz Traña celebrates putting Paris 2-0 up at Lyon ©Sportsfile

For the first time, Paris Saint-Germain are in the UEFA Women's Champions League final and no one can say they did it the easy way. Midfielder Shirley Cruz Traña looks back at a run in which they knocked out both holders VfL Wolfsburg – who had never previously lost a European game – and her former team Olympique Lyonnais, winning every away match they played.

Round of 32: FC Twente 2-1 (a), 1-0 (h), agg: 3-2
We never had any luck with the draw. Twente have a pretty strong team and made things pretty difficult for us in those two legs. But in the end we gave a solid team performance and managed to overcome them.

Round of 16: Olympique Lyonnais 1-1 (h), 1-0 (a), agg: 2-1
I have a lot of respect for the work Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas has done, and also the players there, because to be up there you have to work hard every day and they've demonstrated that they have reached that level. We worked very hard to come up with a way to beat a team like Lyon, who are very solid in all departments. It was difficult but we achieved it. It was a moment where we closed the gap.

Luckily we played well at home – they scored but from the only real chance we got, we scored. That is what counts. The team that scores reaches the next round. You could criticise the way we won, but in the end we are in the final and that's what matters.

Video: Quarter-final goals

Quarter-finals: Glasgow City FC 2-0 (a), 5-0 (h), agg: 7-0
[On the second leg at the Parc des Princes] We had a lot of anticipation before playing that match. It was simply a moment to enjoy. And for me personally it was my first game after my knee surgery.

I just tried to enjoy the moment, because we had already got the advantage at their place, so we tried to play well and put on a show for the people who came to watch us.

Highlights; 2-0 win at Wolfsburg

Semi-finals: VfL Wolfsburg 2-0 (a), 1-2 (h), agg: 3-2
We worked hard and studied Wolfsburg a lot. We knew what we had to do, and we did everything that we took with us from the week of preparation. So everything worked. And they made a mistake – they didn't press us enough with the style they were playing and they never reacted.

We won 2-0 away but you know that in the Champions League anything can happen and when we played them at home, we scored the first goal but then dropped off a bit. But in the end what counts is the result and we are in the final.

Paris reach the final

The most difficult thing was [Caroline] Seger's yellow card. We all knew various players were on a yellow card, meaning another yellow card would put them out of the final. You shouldn't think about those things but it does affect you a bit.

Overall
We are making history for this club. We have been working on this project to make it into a final for three years. We have to keep working even though we have reached one objective – getting to the final – but to win it would be extraordinary. It's part of the process at the club, so I hope it won't be the last time.

Shirley Cruz Traña was speaking to Louis Laffitte

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