Following their home defeat to Bayern Munich, the Parisian team have lost five of their last six games in European qualifiers and their tally borders on disaster in the old continent’s top league.
PSG again fell in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16, this time against Bayern Munich, their executioner in the 2020 final. Once again the Parisian team showed that it is a star-studded group going to him, with a strong lack of block which is not the first time he has brought it out. To participate in the Champions League, you must first of all be a team and secondly that the important players make the difference. At PSG it’s the other way around, and the numbers back it up, and with an institutional and changing room crisis that’s hard to reconcile.
Until Mbappé’s departure, PSG hardly worried about Yann Sommer’s goal with Messi and Neymar on the field and that is somewhat worrying. It was different with the Frenchman on the field, but they left empty again against a top player in Europe. The data speaks for itself, and that is that PSG have lost five of their last six games in the Champions League qualifiers. Only one win, against Real Madrid in the first leg of last season’s round of 16 (1-0), and just as many defeats against important teams such as Bayern Munich, Manchester City and the Whites themselves.
1,590 million euros later, PSG is unable to participate in the Champions League and therefore reflect on the field the astronomical purchases it has been making for years. Since the Paris team entered the Champions League, they have played 40 rounds in the top European league, with a record of 15 wins, 8 draws and 17 losses. A negative calculation that even the last decade of inexhaustible financial muscle has not been able to reverse.
The return is missing, but PSG is struggling to reach the quarter-finals of this tournament and the precedents are not encouraging for the French. Of the six times they were beaten at home in the first leg of a Champions League tie, the Paris team never managed to come back and they were always knocked out. If they confirm their elimination in the round of 16, it would be the fifth time they have fallen to this stage of the competition in the last seven years. They only managed to get through this round two years ago against Barcelona and three years ago against Borussia Dortmund, leaving behind a disastrous record for a team whose main goal every season is to build a league that will take them resists year after year.
Only one final, in 2020 and with a defeat against Bayern, in a very special tournament because we were with one-game qualifiers after the pandemic and in a neutral venue. The rest of the seasons are remembered for resounding hits, such as Barcelona’s 6-1 comeback in 2017, or Real Madrid’s last season when the French practically did it.
This Tuesday’s meeting has given us several statistics to remember from the great European evenings. To begin with, Warren Zaire-Emery, a Paris youth side, became the youngest player to start a knockout stage match in the entire history of the Champions League at 16 years and 343 days.
In turn, Kingsley Coman once again established himself as the executioner of PSG, from whom he already stole the 2020 Champions League with his goal in the final. The French winger has never lost a game in which he scored, with a record of 52 wins and three draws. In addition, it has more leagues (11) than seasons in the elite (10). With that victory goal, he also broke PSG’s streak of 41 official games without losing at the Parque de los Príncipes.
Ultimately, Thomas Muller entered the podium of players with the most games in the knockout stages of the Champions League, behind only Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo who top the table with 84 games.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
