Among the many and spectacular figures of the Parisian defeat against Manchester City (2-1), Wednesday, in the semi-final first leg of the Champions League, there are some that call out when we look at the physical collapse of the Parisians in second period.
In their starting XI, Manchester City had only three players (Gündogan, Walker, Mahrez) who have contracted the Covid since the start of the season.
On the Parisian side, they were eight, only Kimpembe, Bakker and Gueye having escaped the virus.
Paris is one of the European clubs most affected by the Covid.
Since returning from the holidays at the end of August when Neymar, Di Maria, Navas, Icardi, Marquinhos and Paredes had been infected, eighteen players have officially been affected, including Verratti twice.
It is even possible that other cases have arisen without official communication.
We are far from the eight cases announced by City.
Read alsoChampions League: can PSG get up and overthrow Manchester City?
Of course, as all observers point out, it was first of all the tactics of Pep Guardiola that led to the exhaustion of the Parisians.
"The balance of power was reversed at the break," says Philippe Montanier, former coach of Lens, Rennes or even Real Sociedad.
Pep Guardiola has not changed his device so far, except that he asked his players to put more intensity without the ball, with the pressing, and with the ball too, which embarrassed the Parisians.
The balloon circulated quickly from one sector to another with an extraordinary technical quality.
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"The repetition of efforts seems to induce increased fatigue"
But what about the effects of the Covid on the performance of Parisians? Doctor in physiology, specialized in the mechanism of fatigue and director of research and expertise centers in Aix-en-Provence and Paris (8th arrondissement), Jean-Bernard Fabre has just published a scientific article in the British Medical Journal on the consequences of the disease in athletes. “We have created a battery of tests that allow us to quantify the Covid impact on sports performance,” says the scientist. We notice, in high level athletes who evolve at very high intensities, that the repetition of efforts seems to induce increased fatigue and higher recovery times between efforts. We don't yet know why. But there is indeed a problem. "
We then think of Marco Verratti, twice positive in a few weeks, back as holder only during the match in Metz last Saturday and completely exhausted after 50 minutes of play against Manchester. "I no longer have the Covid, it killed me a bit because I had all the possible and imaginable symptoms", he told Saturday on Free. As Mauricio Pochettino was slow to make changes, PSG therefore quickly and for a long time given the impression of being out of breath very quickly. This is an element that Pochettino will have to take into account in the sequence of the next two meetings, against Lens on Saturday and in Manchester on Tuesday. In order to hope to secure a place in the Champions League final and write a new chapter in a truly special season.
