There are bullfights in Portugal too, but with one big difference to the ones that can be seen in Spain: the bulls are not killed in the arena. And on Wednesday evening at the Champions League game between RB Leipzig and PSG, an excellent analogy could be drawn: Leipzig’s Portuguese striker André Silva was facing the great opportunity to rise to matador.
12 minutes had passed when he took a penalty against PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma after Christopher Nkunku’s early lead – and missed. PSG gratefully accepted the pardon from Silva, turned the game around – and in the end had to accept the 2-2 equalizer after Dominik Szoboszlai converted a penalty (90 + 2). Leipzig’s journey in the Champions League is over. With his first point win in Group A, Leipzig can still dream of hibernating third in the group in the Europa League.
The game had started with a loud wake-up call from Leipzig for the Parisians. Only seconds had passed after the whistle when Silva appeared alone in front of Donnarumma for the first time and caused great confusion: The goalkeeper and his captain Marquinhos did not agree centimeters in front of the line on who should bring the ball under control – Angeliño was able to pull. Without fortune. Anyone who thought the guests were now awake was mistaken: they had just pressed the snooze button.
Right winger Ángel Di María played an impossible ball on Achraf Hakimi, who could not untied his legs in time and could only watch André Silva cross from the left and Nkunku headed the ball into the goal to make it 1-0. PSG pressed the snooze button again, slumbered and conjured up the missed penalty by a foul by defender Presnel Kimpembe. With consequences.
Because not only Silva, the entire Leipzig team got out of step. The thought of the missed penalty deactivated all codes that had previously triggered an aggressive pressing. The first to smell this was the previously sporadic Neymar. The Brazilian dropped back to the center line, demanded and received the ball – and initiated an exemplary attack that only ended when the ball landed over quick, direct passes at Georginio Wijnaldum. The Dutchman, who immigrated to Paris in the summer, pushed the ball over the line after a low pass from Kylian Mbappé to equalize (21st).
The compensation falls too late for Leipzig
The second degree of the Parisians landed again in the gate of the Leipzig. Wijnaldum was there again, this time after a Marquinho header down after a Di María corner kick. The fact that the goal was only recognized in the 39th minute was due to the fact that the video referee had to point out to the referee Andreas Ekberg that Wijnaldum – contrary to what was originally indicated – was not offside at all.
That was not the first scene in which an often erratic Ekberg was in focus: after half an hour he had shown Leipzig’s trainer Jesse Marsch the yellow card – curiously, not for the first time. The Swedish referee Marsch had already warned Marsch in a game between Liverpool and Marsch’s previous station in Salzburg. It was clear from Marsch’s lips that he was uttering a well-known Syntagma from the realm of the toughest English-language curses in the direction of Ekberg.
In the second half, Leipzig struggled without a clear line, but with a lot of heart to equalize. The French guests initially exuded danger. Di María missed narrowly; Mbappé found, as shortly before half-time, his master in goalkeeper Gulacsi. Then the Parisian game with fire began. They let the game slide into lively chaos. But Angeliño and substitute Dominik Szoboszlai failed with good chances to score – until the Hungarian scored 2-2 after a penalty that was decreed by the video referee when it was too late for Leipzig.