A few weeks after deciding not to grant <a href="https://www.archysport.com/2022/10/training-psg-painfully-defeats-benfica-and-continues-its-path-in-the-youth-league-1-0/" title="Training: PSG painfully defeats Benfica and continues its path in the Youth League (1-0)”>João Neves a decisive assist, the LFP decided to withdraw from Nuno Mendes the goal he scored in Nice this Sunday evening (1-1).
If PSG is at the top of the Ligue 1 scorers and assists rankings respectively with Barcola and João Neves, the Parisians can nevertheless consider themselves a little aggrieved by the LFP’s commission for awarding goals and assists. The latter did it again during the recent Nice – PSG. In the eyes of the LFP, it was not Nuno Mendes who equalized in favor of the Parisians with a right-footed strike but rather Nice’s Moïse Bombito who scored against his camp given that he slightly deflected the strike from the Parisian left-back.
Nuno Mendes’ first goal of the season! =%pic.twitter.com/WLG4X1X7i1
— Ligue 1 Portuguese (@Ligue1_POR) October 7, 2024
The DAZN cameras which broadcast the match were not particularly clear on this point but the doubt did not benefit the PSG player since this goal was withdrawn from him this Wednesday by the LFP Competitions Commission which even made a press release on the official Ligue 1 website. The goal was initially awarded to Mendes before the famous commission changed its mind and withdrew it from him. Obviously, the decision is not justified by any image showing that the Portuguese’s shot was off target…
Before Mendes, João Neves deprived of an assist
This is already the second time this season that a goal has been judged against a Parisian player. The first episode dates back to the first day of Ligue 1, on the Le Havre pitch, when João Neves passed the ball to Bradley Barcela on the left side in the 86th minute. The winger accelerates, passes between two players before striking victoriously into the opposite net. In the eyes of the LFP, Neves did not deliver an assist on this occasion and this is the reason why the League gives him 4 in total in Ligue 1 when all statistical institutes attribute 5 to the Portuguese on the current season.
�Bradley Barcola in his works�#HACPSG (1-4) pic.twitter.com/sgTV1VWvRH
— Ligue 1 McDonald’s (@Ligue1) August 18, 2024
And if the LFP has somehow taken away a decisive pass from João Neves, it has just done the same to Ousmane Dembélé since it was he who displaced Nuno Mendes on the equalizer in Nice. Since it was not Nuno Mendes who scored but Bombito against his camp, there is no longer a decisive passer in this action and Dembélé therefore sees himself removed one unit from the passer ranking.
While the LFP makes efforts which are frankly worth emphasizing in the management of the calendar in order to help French clubs in the European Cup, and therefore PSG which is almost every year the last entry, its attitude concerning the attribution goals and assists is still so hard to follow season after season: what is the point of converting goals into own-goals, especially when it is absolutely not blatant, or of withdrawing assists?