The French sports newspaper considered that the Argentine was one of the worst players in the duel for the first leg of the round of 16 of the Champions League.
No way around it. Paris Saint Germain does not finish exploding as a super team and seems to have one foot out of the Champions League after the 1-0 defeat at home against Bayern Munich, for the first leg of the round of 16 in the Parc des Princes. And Lionel Messi, once again, was one of the most targeted by the French press that has no compunctions when it comes to qualifying the performance of the team led by the erratic Christophe Galtier.
The sports newspaper L’Equipe never had a feeling with Messi. And every time he can take the opportunity to hit him hard. Especially when things don’t go well for PSG. As soon as the game ended, the French newspaper put together the bulletin and La Pulga was one of the five worst players in the French capital.
They put a three on it. I defer. The same qualification that the Brazilian Neymar received, who played much worse, had almost no influence and was also booked. They also hit the Italian Marco Verratti hard, the emerging Frenchman Warren Zaire Emery – who became the youngest player to start in the final phase of the tournament at the age of 16 – and the Moroccan Achraf Hakimi, who deserved the same score. They were, according to L’Equipe, the five worst in Galtier’s team.
It seems exaggerated. At least from what was seen from Argentina, Messi had an acceptable performance. It must be appreciated that the captain of the Argentine National Team understands all the situations that matches can give him. Against the German giant, Leo had a couple of attempts at speed transitions, he dropped back on a few occasions to shoot, made free kicks near the area or to grant rest and took a very hard offense from Frenchman Benjamin Pavard as a souvenir. In the final minute of the first half, he executed a free kick that hit the wall. It was his only shot on goal. It is true: he did not shine. But it is far from a three.
For L’Equipe, who also qualified Galtier with a three, PSG’s best were the center-backs, the Brazilian Marquinhos and the Spanish Sergio Ramos, who deserved a six.
How much did they put on Gianluigi Donnarumma? The Italian goalkeeper, responsible for his very weak response to Kingsley Coman’s goal that sealed Bayern Munich’s victory, scored a merciful four. It is the same score that the Portuguese Nuno Mendes and the Spanish Carlos Soler received. For his part, Danilo Pereira, another Portuguese, got a five for his work in midfield.
