After that, it was a nightmare. Manchester City's equalizer shortly after the hour mark, after a committed and engaging first period for PSG, changed everything, reversed the balance of power and destroyed the last strength of the capital club. Then there was the second goal of the Mancuniens, the expulsion of Gana Gueye at the end of the game where Paris got lost on a Stations of the Cross from which it will have difficulty recovering in the competition. He is now on the verge of elimination in the semi-finals of the Champions League. There remains a match, a possible reversal, it is even the very nature of this game to offer it. Often even. Hope exists, but so does the real. The task is immense and the possibility of achieving it as easy as passing the thread through the eye of the needle the first time.
The match lasted too long for PSG who will not have had the merit of consistency, probably because of his legs pulverized by a first hour of high flight.
He defended en bloc, with abnegation, with a discipline labeled Mauricio Pochettino but he was overtaken by a form of mental fragility.
As if the combination of a second goal that did not come and the equalizer of the English had destroyed him, chasing his confidence, his courageous attitudes and the enthusiasm aroused by his first period.
Neymar and Mbappé's complicated evening
Paris has lost track, that's for sure. But the truth also leads to say that he did not necessarily deserve this equalization, that he often seemed closer to the second goal than to this stroke of fate, an almost harmless strike from Kevin De Bruyne rather badly read by Keylor Navas ( 1-1, 65th), hero in all previous rounds. The partners of Marquinhos, first scorer of the evening from a corner and a header (15th), had transformed Manchester City into a Ligue 1 team, sluggish, fearful, uninspired offensive and betrayed by an approximate technique.
We must not forget what precedes City's two goals. PSG then showed that it was driven by a faith. Everyone is struggling to summarize the club of the capital with two stars and an individualized game, it is rather a team, carried by its sense of sacrifice like the role of Angel Di Maria ready to all the helpers and still ahead, afterwards, to try to serve Neymar or Kylian Mbappé. Pochettino had done everything well, rewarded for his choice to start Mitchel Bakker, quite astonishing to the left of the defense. If Marco Verratti had been able to understand Mbappé's dribbling at the start of the second half, he would only have had to push the ball to the bottom for the 2-0. Everything started to change here. We would probably talk about something else now.
The following tells that PSG did not know or could sublimate this collective of the first period by its usual raids and its providential stars, with the complicated evening of Mbappé and Neymar.
Paris walks to the edge of the void a few days before the return meeting.
But it's already time for a start, to think about your own story that you are writing, about the exploits.
We must change this end that is coming.
MATCH SHEET
Half-time: 1-0
Referee:
M. Brych (All.).
Spectators: in
camera.
Goals.
PSG: Marquinhos (15th);
Manchester City: De Bruyne (64th), Mahrez (71st).
Warnings:
PSG: Paredes (70th), Neymar (74th);
Manchester City: Cancelo (31st), De Bruyne (86th).
Expulsion.
PSG: Gueye (77th).
PSG:
Navas - Florenzi, Marquinhos (cap.), Kimpembe, Bakker - Paredes (Herrera, 83rd), Gueye - Di Maria (Danilo, 80th), Verratti, Neymar - Mbappé.
Entr.
:
Pochettino.
Manchester City:
Ederson - Walker, Stones, Rúben Dias, Cancelo (Zinchenko, 61st) - B. Silva, Rodri, Gündogan - Mahrez, De Bruyne, Foden.
Entr.
:
Guardiola.
