all lights are green for PSG before facing the Yellow Wall in Dortmund

The capital club approaches its trip to Germany in the role of favorite and with no cloud on the horizon.

24 degrees and not a single threatening cloud on the horizon. It’s hard to imagine that we are in Germany this Tuesday, April 30 and, above all, that Paris Saint-Germain is only 180 minutes away from a second Champions League final. On the eve of the semi-final first leg on the pitch of Borussia Dortmund, there is an atmosphere that is as light as it is unprecedented for the capital club. At a press conference, Luis Enrique acted like Luis Enrique, denying any form of pressure, and it was a very jovial Gonçalo Ramos who answered the journalists’ questions.

“I’m ready, whether I’m a starter or a substitute.”, assured the Portuguese attacker, like a good soldier but no less sincere. He too understood the importance of cultivating the new serenity of PSG. “We are more of a team than the last time we came to Dortmund (five months ago). A lot of new players who had never played together arrived last summer. Now we are a family.”he described.

The group lives well

The good humor of this group which takes pleasure in carrying away the losers during the traditional toro on the eve of the match proves him right. During the 15 minutes of training open to the press, the Parisians displayed the same playground atmosphere as in San Sebastian and Barcelona during the previous rounds. We even saw Luis Enrique take a few juggles and hit the bar with a long shot, provoking a few laughs from the same journalists to whom he had fun repeating that they didn’t know “almost nothing in football”.

After all, he can afford a few tackles. His team is in the running for an unprecedented quadruple with a serious chance of winning the first Champions League in the club’s history, despite deliberately lowering expectations at the start of the season. Now that the question of the French champion title is settled, PSG can concentrate completely on its European adventure. With new certainties, acquired in Barcelona, ​​where he achieved a comeback that no French club had managed to accomplish before him.

“Yes, I think it freed us to do what no one has done before. But the experience I have made me say that what we have already done is no longer worth anything the next day. The important thing it’s about winning tomorrow and not speculating”, insisted Luis Enrique, whose demands are matched only by his desire to always contradict his interlocutors. For “earn” in fact, he will have an almost complete group. The only two players missing are Presnel Kimpembe and Sergio Rico, already absent since the start of the season.

No absence, freshness and security of the return match

Above all, everyone has had at least one game off in recent weeks. Playing against Le Havre, the starters Gianluigi Donnarumma, Nuno Mendes, Lucas Hernandez and Fabian Ruiz arrive with freshness. Kylian Mbappé can almost say the same since he only played half of the last match. And in addition to this measured management of fatigue, there is two other good news for Paris Saint-Germain.

The first is the newfound efficiency of Ousmane Dembélé who has scored four goals in his last four matches, after having converted only one of his first 65 shots of the season. The French international had shone under the whistles of Barcelona supporters and is preparing to suffer an equally hostile reception from the Yellow Wall because of his forced departure seven years ago.

The other reason for hope is the fact that, for the first time in three years (a qualification against Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals), Paris benefits from the comfort of hosting in the return match. A configuration which allows it to allow itself a little more management in the event of a good result on Wednesday, or to increase the pressure by relying on the Parc des Princes in the event of defeat.