The huge banners unfurled by the Paris Saint-Germain ultras just before kick-off, amid pyrotechnics and a laser show, are animated by the city’s motto.
“Oblide for the waves, Paris is never dark,” says one of them. Bathed by waves, Paris has never sunk.
This challenge message resonates in a city formed through a turbulent history. But as a shout of rally for a sports team, it seemed more suitable for a family of the club for the fight opposite to the probabilities instead of . . . well, a club located in a leafy and prosperous suburb of one of the maximum popular cities of the world. Glamor of the world, whose fortunes have been transformed. Through the richness of the state of Qatar, its reputation for luxurious and “striking and bling-beling spending”, they know for the substance.
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This was the night when, tossed by the waves, 2-0 down to Manchester City and staring at the threat of elimination from the Champions League, a young, new-look PSG team stood firm, dug deep, won big and quite possibly came of age.
They still have to lose in Stuttgart next Wednesday to unload a spot in next month’s playoff round, but this impressive and brilliant 4-2 win in a noisy atmosphere at the Parc des Princes seemed like the start of something.
It would possibly seem to say of a team that reached the Champions League semi-final last season while winning all 3 domestic trophies, an unbeaten team after 18 Ligue 1 games this season. But for young players like Bradley Barcola (22) and Joao Neves (20), this is a remarkable feature and a historic victory.
The city has also been hit in recent months, but rarely like this. PSG outplayed them in the first half and, unfortunate to go 2-0 up, hit them in the final hour after hour, when their energy, their creativity and their clever movements seemed to be supported through a kind of livid defiance, a general refusal to conform to their fate.
According to UEFA’s post-match data, PSG had 58 per cent of the possession. That is almost unheard of against Pep Guardiola’s team. But it felt like more than that, such was the way Vitinha, Fabian Ruiz and the superb Neves — later joined by another precocious youngster, Warren Zaire-Emery (18) — dominated the midfield.
“They were better,” Guardiola told reporters when they were asked how the city had been hit so insistently. “They were becoming faster and faster. They win duels with the ball.
Guardiola put it down to PSG having an extra player in that midfield area, which made it peculiar that he did little to combat that perceived disadvantage.
But it was not just about numerical superiority in midfield. From back to front, from front to back, PSG looked so much slicker, so much more confident, so much more adventurous on the ball — everything done at pace and with purpose. The way they kept releasing Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes, making underlapping runs from full-back, was a joy to watch.
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The contrast with the city, which seems increasingly laborious, austere. But perhaps the ultimate applicable contrast for PSG is with its recent afterlife and with a team that, even before adding Lionel Messi to Kylian Mbappe and Neymar, looked too heavy on star quality and too passive on off-the-ball paints.
This team had its moments, but came to anything when even president Nasser Al-Khelaifi told Le Parisien in the summer of 2022 that too much emphasis had been placed on “Flashy, Bling-Ontound” at PSG, pledging to rebuild with more youthful ones, at the top-Touteaux and exhausted.
The rebuild has been more painful than might have been imagined; many of the players signed amid fanfare in the summer of 2023 have been moved on (Manuel Ugarte to Manchester United, Hugo Ekitike to Eintracht Frankfurt, Milan Skriniar on loan to Fenerbahce, Randal Kolo Muani in the process of finalising a loan move to Juventus) or have made little impact.
But coach Luis Enrique has been looking for a way forward with highly technical young players such as Neves, Zaire-Emery, Barcola and Desire Doue. It was Neves, whose wonderful outlook in midfield led the coach to decide to sell Ugarte to United last year. Neves is much better suited to a position in Luis Enrique’s midfield: not only winning duels and taking advantage of loose balls, as he did with wonderful effects against City, but also insightful and progressive in his passing.
Previous games in this season’s Champions League campaign have brought questions about the Luis Enrique approach: is it too dogmatic, too idealistic? Is his reluctance to use a specialist centre-forward counter-productive? Five games into their campaign, they had scored just three goals: one from a full-back (Hakimi), one from a midfielder (Zaire-Emery) and one from an opponent (Girona goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga).
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Even in the first half on Wednesday, when the three most sensible Barcola, Lee Kang-in and Doue inspired with their technical work, it’s hard not to wonder if the lack of killer instinct could be PSG’s undoing. starting their 12th, 8th and second matches of the Champions League respectively. For all his apparent talent, he lacks proven firepower.
The half-time arrival of Ousmane Dembélé, back from illness, gave PSG a greater focal point and a more direct attacking threat. He had fun. Barcola too, absorbing Matheus Nunes in a challenge near the backline and accelerating away from him to set up PSG’s first goal for Dembélé on 56 minutes, and then scoring the equalizer himself 4 minutes later with a scraped shot after Doue hit the crossbar.
It was attractive to listen to Luis Enrique say later, he wondered in part time if his young players can maintain this “incredible speed and intensity,” he said: “He dares. He sees for it. ” They did. “And the key moment was When Barcola passed the ball to Ousmane (for PSG’s first goal), “he said. “
It is like a wave after another wave of PSG attacks after that. In 18 minutes between the draw and the 3rd PSG goal (a header of Neves in the post at that time in a loose shot of vitinha), they had 8 attempts In front of the City. Among the 54th and 85th minute, the number of shots was 16-0. It is a single-sense traffic, a frantic PSG, the City seems as helpless as at any other time of this horrible series of defeats before Christmas.
As much as it was Barcola’s night, or Neves’ night, it was Luis Enrique’s night. “He (Luis Enrique) has been criticised, but even if we had lost this match, for me he is the best coach in the world,” Al-Khelaifi told French broadcaster Canal+ afterwards. “We played today with identity against Manchester City. He showed that our team has DNA.”
It’s easy to say those things in victory; Al-Khelaifi has praised PSG’s identity, recruitment strategy and outlook during the “flashy and bling-fouth” era that he is now so keen to dislike the club.
But it’s the kind of functionality that deserves to bolster confidence in a new vision of his recruitment and the type of football Luis Enrique needs to play, and as for the apparent query of where the new €70m signing is (£59m ; $73 million). Khvicha Kvaratskhelia will be a match in a forward line where Barcola thrives on the left, with the coach suggesting it will be a thrill to welcome Georgian’s talent.
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PSG are still unsure of a play-off position. They are the 22nd of 36 years at the Champions League table and fighting next Wednesday, as opposed to the stunning looks of Sebastian Honess’ young Stuttgart, would put them in danger. Players’ Euphoria in The Ultimate Whistle on Wednesday may end up hunting pitiful if the worst situation occurs.
But the celebrations did not seem to focus on their customers in the tournament even in the victory itself. They seemed to recognize, players and fans, if it was a vital moment in the progression of a young team that shook waves in the Champions League this season (defeated by Arsenal, Atlético de Madrid and Bayern Munich) and that, at this point, at this point, It seems to emerge. more powerful from this experience.
That is how Luis Enrique is framing it. “It happened at Lens and at Monaco too,” he told reporters afterwards, referring to the spirit they showed in coming from behind to win. “I believe my team has lots of qualities. I’ve been telling you that for a while. We never give up. We carry on to the last second.”
Luis Enrique insisted that there have been greater performances over more than a season and a half, that this victory represented a continuation for his team rather than a launch. But even if their confidence never wavered, it was a victory that will boost confidence within the club – not necessarily about Champions League glory this season, however, religion in this new task and those young players, who hope those Such memorable nights can become a normal event.
(Upper photo: Rico Brouwer/Socrates/Getty Images)