With Messi scorer and a big collective, the Parisians offer themselves a prestigious victory

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At the Parc des Princes,

In a long-awaited poster, PSG beat Manchester City on Tuesday night on the second day of the Champions League. A very welcome victory with the quack in Bruges, and which above all showed a real step forward for the Parisians in their collective expression.

A real good football match

Let’s start there. This poster, revenge of the semi-final of last season, smelled good of the game and we were not disappointed. That’s the advantage of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, anyway, who’s never around to shut down and wait for it to happen. The English did what was expected of them, with incessant pressing and always at least six players concerned by the offensive phases. They largely dominated the second half, but Paris was able to respond thanks to a real collective fight. It was a poster to play together and the Parisians worked there, in solidarity, saved by the incredible clumsiness of Bernardo Silva (26th) and a great Donnarumma, and altruistic in the opposing camp. They added a great deal of efficiency. Perfectly launched in the 8th minute by Gueye, who has discovered a passion for big mines in recent days, they folded the case a quarter of an hour from the end thanks to Messi’s first goal. Or how to end a perfect evening.

Better in MNM

These are not yet the great flights promised on paper, but for their third joint outing after Bruges and Lyon, the fantastic three have shown signs of a rise in their common expression. Mbappé, in particular, who we had seen isolated in these two previous matches (respectively 28 and 38 balls played, unheard of for two years), found a way to be useful. His decisive pass for Gueye could have been for Neymar, and it was again he who offered the highlight of the show to Messi with a superb deflection. The Argentinian, celebrated by a Park in total fury, rewarded the efforts of the trio, who constantly sought themselves, even if the head remained too low two or three times. There is still work to be done and this is normal, but the MNM, still in its infancy, has shown that it is cut out for this kind of event.

Verratti, the keystone

The Italian displayed an indecent level for someone who had not touched the ball for a month. His repeated absences are also the great drama of PSG, an observation that is nothing new but which comes back, each time more frustrating than the previous one, when we see it like that. Marco delivered a mammoth game in the middle, always where it takes without his side to recover the ball, without leaving his part when it comes to dribbling three opponents in 20 square centimeters before relaunching cleanly. If the three in front had more ammunition to exploit, it is certainly not for nothing. The team is much more balanced with him, even if we do not forget the performances of Gueye and Herrera at his side. The Park, which reserved a huge ovation for him when he left, knows this better than anyone.


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