Arguably the standout fixture of this season's Champions League group stage just took place with Paris Saint-Germain hosting Manchester City - a rematch of a semifinal from last season.
PSG took all three points after winning 2-0. Idrissa Gueye opened the scoring for the French club in the eighth minute. Then, in the 74th minute, the moment for which all PSG fans had been waiting finally arrived: Lionel Messi scored his first goal for the club since signing from Barcelona in the off-season. In doing so, Messi snapped a somewhat unexpected goal drought which started as soon as he arrived at PSG.
Some might point to PSG's victory as a sign of things to come this season. They claim that the version of PSG we saw against City is PSG at its full potential - a team which should be the prohibitive favourite to land a first Champions League title in the club's history.
However, I would urge caution regarding this viewpoint. For one thing, this current Manchester City team, while certainly no slouches, do not appear to be genuine Champions League contenders. They undoubtedly have a very solid squad, but on the whole, are about a half-tier behind the four teams with the best chance to win it all: Chelsea, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, and PSG. As I alluded to in an earlier post, I strongly believe that City will go on to rue their heavy expenditure on Jack Grealish during the off-season. That same amount of money could easily have been used to further strengthen their team in other ways.
In addition (and this is a point I have brought up time and again), it's difficult, if not almost impossible, to rely on this PSG team during clutch situations. Almost every time PSG have found themselves in a high-stakes Champions League match over the past decade, they have come up short. Incredibly, the more favoured they are to win, the worse they seem to do.
PSG's struggles under pressure have been made evident again and again. For seven consecutive seasons, they failed to advance beyond the tournament's quarterfinals. They also choked away commanding leads against Barcelona and Manchester United in 2017 and 2019 respectively; both of these took place in the round of 16. Just last season, they capitulated against City in what many thought would have been a hotly-contested semifinal.
Messi's arrival at the Parc de Princes has raised expectations in the French capital to a whole new level. More than ever, the general sentiment at the club and among its fans is "Champions League or bust". However, considering how PSG have historically performed when the pressure has been at its highest, there is every reason to believe that they will once again fold under the weight of this pressure.
Just to pile on even more pressure, Messi was not the only big-name arrival during the off-season. Now that Gianluigi Donnarumma, Achraf Hakimi, and Sergio Ramos are all at the club, PSG are a genuine "superteam". They clearly have the personnel to win it all, but the question remains - do they have the mentality?
Before anyone says "but Messi and Ramos have delivered in big matches before", remember - there's just something about PSG which seems to "poison" the mentality of everyone who joins. Just look at Kylian Mbappé, for example. When he was just 19, he amazed the world with a series of outstanding performances on the biggest stage and brightest lights of all - the World Cup. A few months later, he made his PSG debut. Since then, he has never been able to recapture that same magic in high-leverage situations.
The textbook example of this problem is Neymar. Underperformance under pressure was never one of the Brazilian's trademark characteristics during his Barça days. This all changed after he signed for PSG for a record-breaking transfer fee in 2017. At this point, so often has Neymar choked that it's arguably fair to question if he even has a net positive effect on the team when the pressure is at its highest.
If PSG once again flatter to deceive, as I believe they eventually will, the fallout will be ugly indeed. Even at this early stage of the season, the stakes have never been higher - only time will tell if this season, they will finally right the wrongs of past years.
No comments:
Post a Comment