a PSG master in the art of contrast

Held in check by Newcastle, the capital club emerged as much frustrated as relieved from their evening on Tuesday, perpetuating their contrasting start to the season.

Seeing Kylian Mbappé celebrate with so much rage to come back to 1-1 against a team which had not played in the Champions League for twenty years, in an evening at the Parc des Princes, could have seemed disproportionate. But by converting the penalty which avoided defeat for his PSG on Tuesday November 28, the French international changed everything and allowed his team to keep their destiny in their hands before the last day of the group stage. With just one goal, Paris went third and would have had to count on a failure by Newcastle, in addition to a success in Dortmund, to see the round of 16.

“Arriving at the last day and being able to decide our destiny was one of our goals”, insisted Luis Enrique in the post-match press conference. At the end of this evening “frustrating”emotions were still ambivalent an hour after the final whistle, between the satisfaction of still being virtually qualified for the next round and the realization that Paris would have already secured its ticket to the final phase with one more goal.

A PSG with two faces on all levels

Contrast and paradox are two words that stick to the skin of the first months of the Enrique era in Paris and which take on even more meaning on Champions League evenings. His team has the lowest total points after five days of the C1 group stage since the arrival of Qatari investors in 2011 (7) and, yet, they are only one victory away from finishing first in their group. Her two oppositions against Newcastle sometimes gave the impression that she had sometimes disappeared from the match, but, both times, Paris was very dangerous according to the statistics.

According to Expected Goals (a statistic which calculates the number of goals that a team should have scored based on the dangerousness of its shots), PSG, for example, should have scored 4.8 goals on Tuesday evening. Which is both proof of the coherence of Luis Enrique’s attack plan and evidence of major shortcomings against the opposing goal. “Sometimes the ball doesn’t want to go into the cages”the Spanish coach was content to repeat.

In this “pool of death”, which is ultimately perhaps not as tough as expected, it is difficult to gauge the real level of this PSG. He is “still far from what [Luis Enrique veut] may it be in the future”. Observers’ bearings are completely blurred by the revolution carried out in the off-season. Enrique’s PSG is taking the opposite direction from that of his predecessors. No more relying on individuals to make the difference, the collective organization is so strict that the coach, for example, declared that Kylian Mbappé could “do better” in the wake of his hat-trick against Reims.

A thick fog to dissipate

But this change has a price since Paris is having much more difficulty breaking down defensive barriers. If Mbappé is there from a statistical point of view, with now 17 goals in 17 matches since the start of the season, his more eccentric placement on the field and the loss of his launching pads which were Lionel Messi and Neymar gives the impression that he is no longer as capable of creating differences on his own.

Ousmane Dembélé’s contribution on the pitch is as undeniable as his ineffectiveness against goal (1 goal in 17 matches). Being able to count on a young player as talented as Warren Zaire-Emery is a godsend, but that a 17-year-old player is so essential in a highly ambitious team is not necessarily reassuring. After only three months of competition, it is obvious that everything cannot be perfect, but behind every good news there is always a downside and vice versa. More than at the end of the first round of the Champions League, we will surely have to take stock at the end of the season. By then, the chiaroscuro surrounding PSG may have evaporated.