PSG won its twelfth Champions Trophy on Wednesday, easily dominating Toulouse (2-0), a first title for Luis Enrique with the Parisian club thanks in particular to a goal from Kylian Mbappé, free to sign wherever he wishes since Monday. The celebrations continue for the French champions. They started 2024 well by imposing their superiority against Toulouse, far too far from the ball in the first period and lacking realism in the second (more than ten shots).
They were also in a hurry to open the scoring, with the 3rd goal this season Lee Kang-In (3rd, 1-0), before putting the game down and fishing in front of the cages. At the origin of the action, Vitinha had perfectly reversed the game, finding Dembélé on the right in the area, who put a touch back to the South Korean, scorer, before leaving for the Asian Cup, until to February 10. Persistent in his choices, Luis Enrique once again aligned Kylian Mbappé at the forefront of the attack, his sixth consecutive match, to the detriment of Randal Kolo Muani or Gonçalo Ramos, left on the bench. The Parisian star, who must decide whether to extend or leave at the end of the season, has been rather comfortable and has changed a lot.
Mbappé, scorer and smile
His attitude, which has been the subject of debate in recent weeks, will be scrutinized more than ever in the coming weeks. In the meantime, on Wednesday evening, he seemed concerned by the game, and less annoyed and more smiling than at the end of December. The Bondynois, who had criticized this repositioning during the Christophe Galtier era, also made some defensive withdrawals, a wish of his coach. “There are a lot of new players, a new coach with a very specific philosophy. It’s been four, five months now that we’ve started to understand what he asks, understand his reflexes, what he wants through his game offensive”, explained the Blues striker on Wednesday at the microphone of the broadcaster Prime Video.
Thanks to a superb sequence (44th, 2-0), he continued to mark the club’s history, becoming the top scorer (111 goals) at the Parc des Princes, boycotted by the Parisian and Toulouse ultras for price and price reasons. because of a lack of fairness. Just before, Gigi Donnarumma had narrowly avoided an equalizer for Toulouse, by returning a shot from Thijs Dallinga onto the post (37th). The Italian goalkeeper repeated in the second half (65th, 90+2).
Skriniar injured, Beraldo returns
On the sides, Ousmane Dembélé and Bradley Barcola were often found and perpetually created imbalance. Certainly not stingy with defensive gestures, they did not manage to finish in front of Guillaume Restes’ goal (13th, 23rd, 30th, 31st). Forfeited against Metz for the last match of 2023, the former Barcelona player very quickly found his connection with the Moroccan Achraf Hakimi, who found the post from a free kick (56th). The latter will also join his selection for the CAN (from January 13 to February 11).
Only bad news: the injury exit of defender Milan Skriniar. He was replaced by the new recruit, the Brazilian Lucas Beraldo, 20 years old, given a standing ovation with each ball by the spectators of an almost full Parc des Princes, which hosted this meeting first planned for August in Thailand before the defection of the ‘organizer. Without trembling too much, PSG has won ten of the last eleven Champions Trophies.
Luis Enrique, who admits that his team still has progress to make, has in fact avoided a heavy atmosphere that would have been caused by a defeat against TFC, winner of the Coupe de France last season, but which is going through complicated times in Ligue 1, in 16th place. “A final is a good way to see how your team can respond,” declared the Spaniard, who thus won his first title with a team other than FC Barcelona (10 gleaned between 2014 and 2017). On this point, he was reassured.