We are finally seeing the end of this tedious group stage of the Champions League, which began in September.
There are still two matches to play before finally moving on to more serious things and the knockout matches.
With 6 and 9 points ahead of Nantes and Montpellier, PSG is almost guaranteed to win its 11th French championship title.
Paris can calmly devote itself to its ultimate quest: this Champions League.
Only Cologne, where the final will be played, and the trophy are still far away.
Start of a new week of #TRAINING for our 🔴🔵 pic.twitter.com/WBBeSJgND3
— PSG Handball (@psghand) February 27, 2024
To facilitate its journey, PSG must fulfill a first delicate mission: finish among the first two in Group A to win a one-way ticket to the quarter-finals.
Before the 13th day, Raul Gonzalez's team occupies third place, 3 points from the Germans of Kiel and only one from the Danes of Aalborg of Mikkel Hansen.
This means that Paris is not master of its destiny.
If the Germans and Danes remain undefeated in the last two days, PSG will have to go through a play-off, in other words a round of 16 round trip.
At the start of this day, Paris, according to the rankings of the two groups, would then play against the Poles of Plock (March 28, April 4) with a return match at Coubertin.
Tricky but not insurmountable.
Don't ask questions
However, the best thing is to avoid this additional obstacle in a very busy season.
This remains very possible because Kiel and Aalborg are not safe from tripping over each other even if they both won this Wednesday to open the day.
Especially the Danes who will host the Poles from Kielce in a week.
Kiel, playing against the Hungarians from Szeged and the Croats from Zagreb, seems more protected.
Especially since to be caught by PSG, Samir Bellahcene's partners must lose their matches.
Counting on a misstep from the Danes is therefore safer.
We still have to be sure on our side and that is the objective of the Parisians.
Without calculating, they must win their last two matches.
The challenge begins this February 29 in Croatia against Zagreb (6:45 p.m., Eurosport).
The Croatians must also win at least once to secure their place in 8th.
Before going to Kiel, they had better do it at home.
This is the difficulty that awaits the Parisians who, in 6 trips to the Croatian capital since 2014, have never lost.
But it was never easy either: the last trip was a year ago and Paris was hot (30-33).
If Paris does not win, it will be necessary to give up on the first two places.
Otherwise, we will have to finish the job in 8 days with the reception of Szeged, hoping at the same time that Kielce will win in Denmark.
With a major pitfall: Dylan Nahi's Poles can no longer finish in the first two places.
Not sure that they will go to Aalborg in a week with full energy to be of service to Paris.