Paris Saint-Germain is playing its season at Bayern Munich, where it comes full of confidence in the wake of a super Kylian Mbappé, despite Neymar’s injury, Wednesday (9:00 p.m.) in the knockout stages of the Champions League .
Paris must win by at least two goals at the Allianz Arena to recover from the defeat of the first leg (1-0) and not stop again in 1/8th, like last year against Real Madrid (1-0/1-3).
Already eliminated from the Coupe de France, in Marseille (2-1) moreover, PSG would only have a 12th Ligue 1 title to conquer, which could not satisfy the appetite of the Qatari owners, obsessed with the C1, nor that of Mbappé.
The N.7 even joked about the subject when asked about his contract extension beyond 2024: “If I tied my future to the Champions League, and I don’t disrespect the club, I would have gone very far!”, he launched into a burst of laughter.
He dreams of winning the first Cup with the big ears of the club, a much more resounding coup for history than if he won the Champions League with Real Madrid and its fourteen titles.
“Kyky” has not gone that far in 2020, failing in the final, precisely against Bayern (1-0). He had arrived injured and had not been able to give the full measure of his talent. A shot that is too soft in particular still remains in his throat.
– Stratospheric Mbappé-Messi duo –
But the year after, he had signed a brace full of authority at the Allianz Arena for a 3-2 victory in the quarter-finals, so Mbappé knows how to avoid a crisis at his club.
Because in the event of another failure, criticism will rain down. They will fall on Christophe Galtier, in his second campaign in C1 only after a failed first with Lille, on the recruitment of football adviser Luis Campos, on Neymar, once again injured and forfeited in the “money time”, on the feverishness goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma…
If the champions of France do not overthrow Bayern, it will be the havoc and the sneers about the end of the “bling-bling” era promised by President Nasser Al-Khelaïfi.
The club is also embarrassed by the indictment for rape of Achraf Hakimi, who appears in the group.
But PSG can avoid this crisis if it qualifies, and it has regained the pace before its big meeting of the season. After three defeats in a row, the last in the first leg, Paris have just won three times in a row with five goals and two assists from Mbappé and three goals and two “assists” from Lionel Messi.
The duo who played in the World Cup final, won by Argentina’s “Leo” (3-3, 4 tab / to 2), is in stratospheric form.
– Three-way defense –
In the absence of Neymar, injured in the ankle and probably forfeited until the end of the season, Galtier’s 3-5-2 has reached a certain balance.
There are only two left with little or no defense, Messi and Mbappé, and the middle triangle, with Vitinha and Marco Verratti at its base, squares the field well.
It is rather behind that the shoe pinches, and Galtier “cannot hide the fact that we give too much hope to an opponent. We will obviously not have the right to have this behavior on Wednesday evening”.
Especially since the Bayern Munich attackers are also in formidable form… In the last seven matches, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting has scored four goals and Kingsley Coman five, and Parisian supporters know the rhyme of ex- PSG players who score against their former club…
But Galtier insists on the three-man defense, which he had installed upon his arrival before changing a little, at the request of his executives, including Marquinhos.
Captain “Marqui” complies with it for the good of the team, he was moved to the left, and Sergio Ramos, in form at the moment, occupies the axis, with the reliable “soldier” Danilo Pereira.
Whatever the system, “the most important thing is that the team has put its head back in place”, says Mbappé, “it is ready to take up the challenge”.
