We found the PSG of last season and it’s not good news. Amorphous and smug, preferring the superfluous to the essential, the capital club bordered on the ridiculous, sometimes yielding to it, deviating from it a little, not often enough for our taste, to finally reap an obvious 3-1 success over land as dry as a summer heat wave. Haifa could not hold out over time and this is the calculation of Paris: wait for the opponent to eliminate himself to win.
Despite a sluggish, annoying match, not in rhythm, the Parisians have almost succeeded in one thing, an axis of play: the Kylian Mbappé – Leo Messi relationship. The first was a passer then a scorer when the second was a scorer then a passer on an evening when Neymar did not show his summer talent even if he scored the goal of comfort, at dusk of the meeting. At least, the relationship of the other two stars of the Parisian attack, born last season, made it possible to erase the joke on the form, not on the substance. In Haifa, PSG played their worst game since the start of the season.
There was not one Parisian to catch up with the other, between the worrying footwork of Gianluigi Donnarumma, the useless heels of Neymar, the planted dribbles of Kylian Mbappé, the tasteless overflows of Nordi Mukiele, the lost balls of Leo Messi. We could go on for a long time. Last week and despite the victory against Juventus Turin, Paris had managed to take the last place in the Champions League ranking in the number of kilometers traveled.
The statistics are not going to get better, Christophe Galtier’s men playing stopped and walking most of the time. The lawn was not level, it was hot and it’s as if PSG had lowered its requirements to stick to the decor.
An upside down Paris
However, this is not the idea in the European Cup, where the intensity must be permanent. Otherwise… Otherwise, it’s a mess with an upside-down Paris, which can take refuge behind the result and its six perfect points to forget its evening next door.
This ugly match confirms the slowdown observed since the second period against the Italian team. Brest (1-0) gave rise to immense boredom and Haifa did not reassure. It’s three wins, nine points, in different competitions, everyone should be happy but it’s not. Because we project ourselves and we see all the flaws that threaten this PSG in the short term with a team split in two, a dubious state of mind despite a good start to the match, largesse in the covers and folds.
In Israel, the best player, one of the best, is called Vitinha and it is still quite strange to note that the most concerned is the one who has just arrived. And the others ? There is a very rapid form of gentrification at PSG and this should not be the case already. Fatigue, chaining, yes. Not the rest, not what we already know, this Paris of last season that we didn’t want to see again.
MATCH SHEET
Half time: (1-1)
Referee: D. Siebert (All)
Buts. Maccabi Haïfa : Chery (24) ; Paris SG : Messi (37), Mbappe (69), Neymar (88)
Warnings. Maccabi Haifa: Atzili (50), Haziza (60), Pierrot (77). PSG : Neymar (89)
Maccabi Haifa: Cohen – Sundgren (Seck 55), Batubinsika, Goldberg – Cornud (Tchibota 90+1), Chery, Lavi (cap.) – Abu Fani, Atzili (David 76), Pierrot (Rukavytsya 90+1), Haziza. Entr. : Barak Bakhar
Paris SG : Donnarumma – S. Ramos, Marquinhos (chap.), Pereira – Mukiele (Hakimi 83), Verratti, Vitinha (Fabián 74), Mendes – Messi, Mbappé, Neymar (Soler 90 + 1). in : Christophe Galtier
