Halfway through its round of 16 in the Champions League, PSG has already played its round of 16 halfway. After a completely terrible first period, he transformed after the break to finally play a European Cup match which he won with a promising 2-0 score. Real Sociedad had to physically collapse, leaving deadly spaces for them, delicious for Paris, much more nervous, invigorating and determined than at the start of the match.
We finally saw that Luis Enrique’s team was playing with attackers and when they were hit, they were finally able to hurt. We can’t really bet on the fact that leaving the ball to the Spaniards was a chosen tactic but it ended up wearing down the Basques, who were much less dashing in the second half.
Only a small option
With a two-goal lead, Paris takes an option but only a small option in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. He was too bad for 45 minutes to really reassure. He has wasted too much in his past life to ensure a quiet qualification on March 5 in San Sebastian.
We have known the story since March 8, 2017 and the comeback of Luis Enrique’s Barça (6-1) against PSG: if the capital club does not show up for the return with at least five goals in advance, it will not has no guarantee. This time it’s two. And on March 5, Real Sociedad will have found some injured, with the withdrawal again at the last second this Wednesday, February 14 of Mikel Oyarzábal, its captain and best player. We don’t know too much about this PSG in the round of 16 to be blissfully optimistic.
On the other hand, what is really taking shape this season is an attack that has teeth as long as the midfielders find it and serve it. Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé no longer appear but their association with Bradley Barcola creates some more spectacular sparks than the trio at the start of the season – mainly with Randal Kolo Muani.
Barcola, football favors the bold
The former Lyonnais scored his first goal in C1 and confirmed that he had won the title of best recruit last summer, 50 million euros at the time raising questions and today looking like a good deal. He is like the daring people who take risks without always knowing where they are going: it is worth living, as if there was always a form of love at the end when we let go and give. Romanticism still has a future in this world and that is also good news.
On the return, whatever the scenario, Paris will not be able to survive with the same technical waste as in the first period, such cautious intentions, a flat midfield, without ideas and without relief, incapable of making a forward pass . At the break, Luis Enrique will organize the heart of the game differently, by “taking out” Warren Zaire-Emery, installed closer to the dangerous players.
It is not necessarily this adjustment that transformed Paris but perhaps just the intention. In football, as in love, you can’t just talk or want. You also need proof. For 45 minutes, Paris proved that it had the level of a quarter-finalist. Another effort.
