Dominated on a regular basis (0-2) Tuesday by Manchester City, which thus seals its qualification for the final after the success of the first leg (2-1) at the Parc des Princes, the Paris-SG tipped into chaos at the end match: Angel Di María expelled who leaves the field by releasing a “son of a bitch” to the one who knocked him down (the Brazilian Fernandinho), a referee who, according to several testimonies from the Paris camp, invites Leandro Paredes and Marco Verratti to “Fuck yourself”, Neymar who attacks everything that happens and an atmosphere of the end of the world.
Since the departure of the Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti in 2013, the Paris-SG has been a team without superego, which does away with what it wants to do away with – the end of the 2015-2016 and 2018-2019 season, the Coupe de France final 2019 – when the karma of its stars, Zlatan Ibrahimovic yesterday or Neymar today, darkens. Both its DNA and its charm: to blame the Parisian team for lacking collective sensations is to blame a basketball player for not standing in a rugby scrum. PSG wins differently and they often win, in Manchester (against United), Barcelona or Munich this season.
Expressionist power
But he is on the line, everywhere and all the time. Nobody is convinced to have seen Manchester City make the two matches of the century during this semi-final of the Champions League, Verratti can even rightfully claim a Parisian superiority “During two halves out of four” (the first of each meeting), but the collective millimeter marks – no more than three players aligned on the width, not more than two on the depth – and the strength of its achievements give it security, stability in a headwind afterwards which PSG will run forever.
Pep Guardiola, the Mancunian coach, saw “A huge team” Parisienne Tuesday evening. Hear: from “Big competitors” (Guardiola again) cut for the high seas, an unparalleled expressionist power and a sense of combat that these players know how to exacerbate on command. PSG are a great team at the moment.
A collection of moments
City, Bayern and Real Madrid are, on the contrary, long-term teams, which build their own balances and which do their own thing over the seasons. It is no exaggeration to say that Neymar et al are not playing the same games as them, launched into a tunnel where the track record is erased at every turn – no collective references in the game, ubiquitous contract extensions of players in failure for years like Layvin Kurzawa or Julian Draxler, the last five seasons without a reliable defensive midfielder – and where the plan for the future comes down to trying to get contract extensions from his superstars.
Nothing before, nothing after: a collection of moments, punctuated by the heartbeats of the players. A different plan of attack, with no past or immediate future. Which may explain, in hollow, the mess of the end of the game on Tuesday. No more than in victory, PSG does not build anything in defeat. He just sees a great opportunity engulfed in the limbo of time.
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