Hello, it’s him again. Having gone through all the emotions and states – alive, eliminated, standing again – PSG is still there, with the round of 16 of the Champions League as the horizon. Certainly in the wrong place, the second, which opens the way to a still tough or even impossible contest at the end of the winter but he will not experience the affront of the changeover to the Europa League, which corresponds neither to his standing nor to its construction for a decade. Thanks to his character, Luis Enrique’s team survived and built something like a soul in an unbreathable and breathtaking finale.
This spirit will have to carry him to the next round, covering ready-made phrases like the idea that to go far in the Champions League, you have to beat everyone. Yes, this PSG is more laborious than before, with less individual talent, lacking its world-class players who reign alone over the matches. Everything is more difficult for him, even for Kylian Mbappé who scores less this season in C1 but during this time he is shaping a real collective. More clumsy, less flashy, less in the spotlight but more in relation to football and this competition which saw Inter Milan reach the final for example last season or Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea win it in 2021 because it was a real team even if there was nothing flamboyant about it.
A real European Cup match, worthy of qualification
Students of football, if the discipline exists, will soon have to work on this theme: can a fantastic match eliminate you from a competition? It will be necessary to compile the examples, deploy a thesis, an antithesis and use this Dortmund-PSG in conclusion, a piece of bravery. And sometimes anthology, with reversals, suspense, exits or virtual qualifications in the event depending on the evolution of the score and that in parallel of Newcastle-AC Milan (1-2), reminding us that more the merrier, the more the crazy. Paris fought a Homeric battle and left its guts behind
Post-it on the PSG fridge: think about buying skillful attackers. With clinical, cold, gifted elements in front of goal, the capital club would have qualified (faster). They would have crushed Newcastle at the Parc des Princes on the 5th day and would have rolled over Dortmund nicely on the next, even if they would have left spaces in transition to the opponent. But conceding one or two goals when you can score at least four doesn’t count on nights when it’s “just” enough to win.
With precise offensives and a bad goalkeeper in Paris, the result of the break would have reflected this brilliant match, with Dantesque intensity, with fights in every lane of the pitch, and teams sometimes overwhelmed sometimes asserting their strengths. A real European Cup match, indeed worthy of a qualification, closer to a round of 16 than a final exit in the group stage. It won’t hurt for the future, in February and March.
