PSG-OL: and in the end, it’s still Paris that wins

Paris will appear in thirteen days in the quarterfinals of the Champions League against Atalanta Bergamo, with its national treble, the first of Thomas Tuchel. He will remember then that he ripped everything in pain, shots on goal, and doubts of a game for the moment still absent. Football is back, not the Parisian spirit of the beginning of the 2020 quarter, undoubtedly hampered by still too heavy legs. Paris celebrates its Cups but lacks lightness. He would have indicated a change in a week, after his painful victory against Saint-Etienne, we would not be there but he is stagnating or advancing blindly, and that was not the idea of ​​this end of July.

Paris and Lyon came to the funeral of the Coupe de la Ligue at the Stade de France and they chose to make the moment fatal rather than surrender to contagious laughter. This competition ended in a vacuum of 0-0 until extra time, marked by a restrictive idea of ​​football, something that looks like it without having the taste. The game gauge is indeed lowered right now, perhaps to 5% of the world before.

An extension in the resumption of the season looks like a poisoned gift that the two clubs engaged in the Champions League may pay in Turin or Lisbon. French football, even after deconfinement, still seems to be working on its head, no doubt taking refuge behind the rule of five changes. The League is the only body to restart its championship on the weekend of the Champions League final, as a sign that it lives in autarky.

Without Mbappé, boredom and helplessness

Football, without physique, without full-backs, without a midfielder except Verratti, without attackers except Neymar, remains sad in the near-camera of Stade France. Once again, a week after a dull final of the Coupe de France against Saint-Etienne, PSG got bogged down in the nothingness of its game where it lacks everything and everything, which situates the extent of the troubles. The capital’s club has not yet deconfined itself, keeping its festive venues, its creativity and its liberating power closed. He plays with his feet but takes gloves and puts all constructed action at a distance.

Life without Mbappé therefore begins in boredom and grief. Impotence too. Neymar, almost a scorer on a head in the twilight (87th), cannot try to make passes to ghosts like Mauro Icardi and Angel Di Maria, passengers of the night lost in the dark. For PSG, everything was decided at the beginning when after a one-two with Thiago Silva, Neymar managed a love of enveloped brushing the left post (8th). Paris will not have better.

His 4-3-3 evening did not have the desired double effect, that of a newfound strength and a better game. Gana Gueye again showed disturbing signs for the high level, despite a surprising long shot (43rd). Leandro Paredes, ten days from Bergamo in the Champions League for the quarter, is back in the race. Above all, Thomas Tuchel would have to find footballers, like Juan Bernat to overflow and of course Kylian Mbappé to create and score. For the moment, Paris does not go beyond the stage of concerns.