With wounds and busy schedules, their common presence is always an event. Neymar, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, all three will be in the game against Manchester City in the Champions League group stage, Wednesday, November 24 (9 p.m.). They will try to bring down the vice-champion of the competition again, this time at home, about a month after taming him at the Parc des Princes (2-0). That evening, the Parisians had obtained their greatest success of the season and the three stars had played what is still their only game in full.
At the time, they were only celebrating their third joint tenure and already the big question was asked: will PSG succeed in making the most of this trio to progress on the European scene? The impatience and hope to see the sparks that the trio would produce on the pitch skewed a lot of analysis and led to a good batch of hasty conclusions. Obviously frustrated at not seeing them as much as they would like (only 6 times in 17 PSG outings), observers tended to view each performance of the trio as a crucial examination and therefore exacerbate each shortcoming observed.
Neymar’s mishap led the newspaper The team to survey its readers on October 4 to find out if he “still deserved to hold” with PSG. On social networks, some have questioned the adaptability of an aging Lionel Messi in a new championship such as Ligue 1. The first finally received from the sports daily an 8/10 and two 7/10 on his last three outings in the league, when the second has just released his goal counter in L1 by scoring against Nantes last Saturday (3-1).
The Parisian forwards are unique players and not just flint that you just have to rub against each other to ignite the flame. Alchemy cannot be born without automatisms and making the right adjustments takes time. But if they have not played enough minutes together in competition to evolve in the best conditions (444 minutes spread over 6 games), the three players are no longer at the start of the school year.
The adjustment period is coming to an end. More than three months have passed since Lionel Messi greeted the crowd gathered at Le Bourget. The trip to Manchester has all the airs of the first real test for this PSG of a new era. Faced with a direct opponent and as ambitious as him, which he has already been able to get rid of with his trio on the lawn, Paris will not have the right to do less well than on the first leg. Especially since the vice-champion of France will have almost all his men.
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Presnel Kimpembe is back from injury, Marco Verratti thought “in fine fettle“in a pre-match press conference. Even Sergio Ramos will be on the scoresheet this Wednesday evening, he who still has not worn the PSG jersey outside of promotional campaigns. For the first time this season, the capital club will have a full squad (only Julian Draxler will be missing), opposite there will be no Kevin de Bruyne and maybe no Jack Grealish either.
After the progress seen in the game with MNM against Nantes last weekend (3-1), the ground is well prepared. It remains to be seen whether Paris will benefit from the presence of the trio. So far, this has not been the case. The Ligue 1 leader scores a goal every 36 minutes when at least one of the three is not on the pitch against only one every 89 minutes when they are together. Above all, his team block is too often cut in two in the offensive phase, for lack of active and coordinated defensive withdrawal from Neymar, Mbappé and Messi. These will be the gaps that the three stars will have to try to erase Wednesday night by guiding PSG to the knockout stages.