PSG fell. Double defending champion, the capital club was eliminated on Monday in the round of 16 of the Coupe de France by Nice during the penalty shootout (0-0, tab 5-6). The Riviera club continues its journey and will face OM in the quarter-finals.
Paris was betrayed by one of its players. On loan this season from PSG to Nice, Marcin Bulka played a very bad trick on his club during the always fateful penalty shootout. After having diverted the attempt of Leandro Paredes, the young Polish goalkeeper (22 years old) won in front of Xavi Simons to take the Parisian formation out of the competition and allow Nice to qualify for the next round, where the ‘Olympic Marseille.
For the Parisians, who had not been released so early since January 2014 (by Montpellier in 16and final), this elimination is not reassuring just two weeks from finding Real Madrid in 8and first leg of the Champions League. Despite the pressure exerted in the last minutes, they were rarely dangerous and never managed to find the solution to break the Nice lock. As in the league at the beginning of December (0-0).
And the entry shortly after the hour mark of Kylian Mbappé, left on the substitutes’ bench at kick-off, did not change anything even if he found the crossbar in stoppage time. presence of Lionel Messi. With the number 10 in the back, the sevenfold Argentine Golden Ball was still very discreet on the lawn of the Parc des Princes. If he was the author of his team’s first shot on target just in the last moments of a tasteless first period, he did not really reassure about his level of play. Quite the contrary. He was once again only a shadow of himself.
Time is running out more than ever for “La Pulga” and Paris, whose rises are now imperative to hope to compete with Real Madrid. In the absence of a quarter-final and a Classic, next week, against Marseille, PSG has only two repetitions left in Lille and against Rennes, the only team to have beaten the Parisian formation in Ligue 1 this season, to try to show a much better face and present themselves against the people of Madrid with more certainty. It remains to be seen whether Mauricio Pochettino on all of his best elements, and in particular on the return of Neymar. The countdown begins.