What if Florentino Perez was not wrong? What if football matches were too long after all? So yes, the president of Real Madrid evoked this slippery track to clumsily hang up his Super League project on the goldfish concentration capacity of the young generation, according to a very personal and unfounded reasoning.
For Paris-Saint-Germain, this semi-final first leg of the Champions League was too long a half against Manchester City, a quiet but relentless force, Wednesday April 28, at the Parc des Princes. With this 2-1 victory, the Citizens take a serious option to play their first C1 final, before the return match on Tuesday at the Etihad Stadium.
With a big month from the epilogue of the season, this PSG is still this difficult object to identify. With this team, midweek truths are good to throw in the trash on weekends. In the championship as in the European Cup for that matter. When we said cured, she relapsed, when we consider it a simple addition of individualities, it shows a remarkable collective strength as in the previous round to get out of the defending champion, Bayern Munich.
For a half, Paris looked the leader of the English league in the eyes. Better, Mauricio Pochettino’s players forced the Mancunians to shared custody of the ball, which never goes without saying against a team led by Pep Guardiola, a relentless theoretician of possession. “We had problems keeping the ball, also because the Parisians have quality”, also greeted the Spanish manager at a press conference.
Without multiplying the opportunities, PSG finally gave a feeling of control, he which is reduced too much to the dazzling feelings of Neymar and Kilian Mbappé. In the shadow of this duo, Angel Di Maria emerged from his shell, shining like George Harrison when John Lennon and Paul McCartney let his discreet talent blossom within The Beatles. At the quarter of an hour of play, the left foot of the Argentinian enters in connection with the head of Marquinhos on corner for the opener. Removed from the field due to injury for three weeks, the captain returns to his good habits, that of the defender who almost always rises and scores in major European meetings.
A matter of details
Before the return match, it will be necessary not to go through losses and noise this first half, at least to give oneself some courage, at least to say that this Manchester City can sometimes purr and take more time to enter a half -final that its leaders to come out of the Super League, their fingers caught in the jam jar.
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