Badly treated since the beginning of the year, the club of the capital does not approach its first big meeting of the season in an ideal context, Tuesday, but the return of the injured Mbappé and Messi offer him hope.
Since the defeat this weekend in Monaco, there floats in the air a singular smell in the air of Paris. But when they meet Bayern Munich in the knockout stages of the Champions League on Tuesday, February 14, the concern and pessimism around PSG seem to have taken on greater proportions than usual. By playing the humor card at a press conference, declaring “apply concealer” to appear more dashing after the two defeats in a row of his team (in Monaco therefore, but also in Marseille in the Coupe de France), Christophe Galtier recognized the bad pass without trying to minimize it.
Before the first crucial deadline of his season, his players left the lawn of the Louis II stadium with their heads bowed, turned towards the locker room rather than towards their supporters. An attitude which fed the dissatisfaction of the Collectif Ultras Paris (CUP) and which weighed down an already very heavy context, which the coach of the capital club would have done well.
In Paris, hope is recovering
In 2023, his team has already lost four times in just ten official games, having completed his first part of the season undefeated (25 games). It is also the very first time, since PSG went under the Qatari flag (2011), that the capital club has approached a round of 16 first leg of C1 remaining on a defeat. Even more than the results, the game produced by his team has disappointed since the end of the truce linked to the World Cup. Evils crystallized by the insufficient involvement of offensive players in defensive tasks and by the lack of binding to creation.
Facing the current leader of the German championship, winner of his six group stage matches in this Champions League by crushing FC Barcelona in his path (2-0, then 3-0), looks like a mountain at this time of the season. But, for Christophe Galtier, the balance of power does not lean clearly on the opposing side, despite the firepower of a Bavarian team led by Kingsley Coman, Thomas Müller and the nugget Jamal Musiala: “It’s 50-50. My players are used to these meetings. I have a much more complete squad available than in previous matches”.
Implied: the bad face displayed by his team since the beginning of February is not the one it will show against Bayern. After weeks of hassle and the passage of a virus, Paris has received several good news. While his package was almost recorded after his hamstring injury against Montpellier, Kylian Mbappé was able to train with his teammates on Monday and is in the group of 22 players summoned by Christopher Galtier, along with Lionel Messi, Fabian Ruiz or even Marco Verratti, all three absent in Monaco on Saturday.
The Mbappé variable
“It’s not sure yet if he’s on the team sheet, but if he’s there, he’ll be there to play. He won’t make an appearance on the bench, that’s for sure”, warned the technician. A year earlier, all eyes were on him ahead of the Round of 16 against Real Madrid and he left his mark on the double tie with two goals, even though qualification flew away. “He’s an extremely important player for our team, a crack. When the three of us are together (with Messi), we feel stronger”supported Neymar on Monday.
Whether or not he was able to hold his own, by his mere presence in training, the three-time goalscorer in the World Cup final broke the gloomy spiral in which his team was trapped. “I have to prepare my team as if he were on the pitch. We are prepared for different scenarios and inevitably, that changes things a bit regarding our approach. But we will not change everything if he comes to play”admitted Julian Nagelsmann, the coach of Bayern Munich, who had refused to believe in the absence of Mbappé two days after his injury.
One thing is certain, PSG suffered its most terrible disappointments when it saw itself already arrived (against Barça in 2017, then against Manchester United in 2019 and finally against Real Madrid in 2022) and, since the passage of Mauricio Pochettino , he has never been stronger on the European stage than when he was not a favourite. In 2021, Bayern had the painful experience of this, losing in the quarter-finals after having largely dominated all of the two meetings (2-3, 1-0).