Despite the defeat, the “incredible” Parisiennes believe in the feat in the return match

At the Parc des Princes,

Fallers of OL at the Parc des Princes last November in the league, the Parisians did not go far to do it again, Wednesday afternoon, on the occasion of the quarter-final first leg of the Champions League. Admittedly, we exaggerate a bit since at the finish it is indeed the title holders who left Paris with the victory (1-0, Renard’s penalty at the very end of the game), but in the content of the meeting PSG gave the lesson to the great OL for 45 minutes before, it is true, to lower the foot in the second half.

Confirmation of this paradoxical evening at a press conference after the match. When, on the one hand, Jean-Luc Vasseur pulled a face 15 km long and evoked “not a bankruptcy but a very difficult evening” for his players, opposite, Olivier Echouafni looked like bamboo evenings and greeted “The incredible match” of his.

“The girls were amazing”

After years spent in the shadow of the Institution, even jealous of it, sometimes, the women’s team of Paris Saint-Germain does not seem very far from fulfilling the mission it has set for itself. he arrival of Qatar in 2011: that of bringing down the immense OL from the pedestal on which it has been mounted for a good fifteen years now. And if Echouafni still spoke of “the Lyon ogre” before this first leg at the Parc, it probably had more to do with a desire to put pressure on his opponents than anything else.

Wednesday, in any case, the coach savored the performance of his players: “We must recognize that we achieved a hell of a performance, especially in the first period. On arrival the 0-0 would have been a minimum for us given the physiognomy of the match. I suspected that we were going to be in difficulty athletically [les deux équipes n’ayant pas joué un match depuis 15 jours] but the girls were amazing. We really deserved to be rewarded in the first half but we lacked foresight and lucidity in the last gesture. We have to be more killer in front of goal. “

The feat? Paris believes in it

The Lyonnaises will still be able to put a kiss on the head of Sarah Bouhaddi, author of a first period of high flight and the origin of at least four decisive stops on Wednesday. Vasseur: “Sarah was very good tonight, she was at the level we expect for such a Champions League match. “We regret that our connection had the bad idea to weaken when the coach went into Zoom / conference because we would have asked him the question of the current state of the balance of power between the two teams. We will therefore fall back on his pre-match statement, when one of our colleagues asked him more or less this question.

“A stronger PSG? We are the title holder, the season is underway, I’m not going to stop people from thinking what they want. We have to respond to long-term absences and we try to keep our standards which are always high, ”he initially defended before admitting that“ it is a reality, PSG is progressing ”.

We were still able, oh miracle of the return of 4G, to question the Parisian Perle Morroni. Answer: “The coach [Echouafni] was talking about the Lyon ogres before the match because they have a big track record, they are title holders in the Champions League, but it’s true that we are progressing a lot, we feel that we have more and more experience . Today we have to raise our heads because in the game we are really very good. “And this one to promise that in the second leg,” we will be at 100% and we will show yet another face. “

Same optimism on the side of the Parisian coach. “We are at half-time for this confrontation,” he recalls. Everything is possible on the return trip, especially since we have always scored at least one away goal this season. We are able to achieve a feat there. “A feat which, if it takes place next Wednesday at Parc OL, would definitively validate the idea of ​​a rebalancing of the balance of power between the two clubs.