The pre-game:
1′. The Parisians quickly recover the ball on an overflow attempt from Modric on the right side.
21 hours. It’s off to the Parc des Princes with Karim Benzema kicking off!
20h57. The 22 actors enter the lawn of the Parc des Princes in an atmosphere of madness!
20h56. The players are in the corridor which leads to the lawn of the Parc des Princes.
20h54. End of the warm-up, the players return to the locker room.
8:52 p.m. A bad memory for PSG at the whistle. Referee Daniele Orsato will officiate at the Parc des Princes. If he led the last two Parisian victories once morest Manchester United in the Champions League, the Italian was especially present during the defeat of the Parisians once morest Bayern Munich in the final of the 2020 edition and more recently during the reverse on the lawn Manchester City in the group stage.
8:49 p.m. Rainy evening. The Parisian weather promises to be capricious since intense showers are to be expected during the meeting. On the temperature side, the mercury will flirt with 10 degrees.
8:45 p.m. A transition match for Mbappé? It has already been several mercatos that Bondy’s crack has been at the heart of the negotiations around a transfer to Real Madrid. Latest example: the late attempt of the Madrid club to recruit the French striker last summer. Ten years following the first contacts forged between the Mbappé clan and the White House, this round of 16 therefore has an all the more symbolic connotation as it comes a few months before a highly probable departure of the player for the Spanish capital.
20h42. The Parisians are warming up on the lawn of the Parc des Princes.
8:40 p.m. Messi almost played at Real Madrid. The story would have been very different. As his biographer Guillem Balague tells us, the Pulga might have signed with the Madrid rival just a few months following signing his first makeshift contract with Barça. The Argentinian will finally stay 20 more years in Catalonia, the time to become the top scorer in the history of the Clasicos with 26 goals.
8:34 p.m. A challenge worthy of PSG. Despite a background still considered disappointing, the capital club has arguments to overcome Casa Blanca and qualify for the quarter-finals of the Champions League. On the one hand, its workforce includes high quality players. On the other hand, despite the premature elimination in the Coupe de France, the trend observed in the game is rather towards improvement, even weak, than deterioration as evidenced by the demonstration in Lille ten days ago.
8:28 p.m. PSG-Real, a story that has lasted since 1993. Despite the many recent confrontations between the two clubs in C1, none has the flavor of the feat of March 18, 1993 in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup in the eyes of Parisian supporters. The capital club had then eliminated the Spanish giant thanks to a masterful header from Antoine Kombouaré in the last seconds.
20h22. Real advantage in official match. The two clubs have faced each other ten times in European competitions. PSG have won three times, including two in the early 1990s but also more recently in the group stage two and a half years ago with a superb 3-0 victory at the Parc des Princes. Opposite, Real Madrid has 5 victories once morest PSG, including two in the double confrontation in the round of 16 four years ago.
8:16 p.m. Pochettino plays competition in goal. Since the start of the season, the Argentinian coach has maintained a “rich man’s dilemma” between the two main goalkeepers of the Parisian workforce: the experienced Keylor Navas and the world number 1 in the making for this position Gianluigi Donnarumma. A seemingly healthy competition if we are to believe the drop in the number of goals conceded by Paris in the last matches but which might affect the morale of the two protagonists.
8:10 p.m. Danilo in ambush. The Portuguese has made his way to integrate the Parisian midfielder for this prestigious meeting of the Champions League. He was able to take advantage of the physical glitches of Wijnaldum and the absence of Gueye in selection for the CAN to shine in the last outings of PSG, like this double scored once morest Lille ten days ago.
20h04. The Madrid bench: Lunin (g.), Bale, Camavinga, Ceballos, Hazard, Isco, Jovic, Marcelo, Nacho, Vallejo, Valverde, Vazquez.
7:58 p.m. The Parisian bench: Navas (g.), Dagba, Diallo, Draxler, Gueye, Herrera, Icardi, Kehrer, Kurzawa, Neymar, Simons, Wijnaldum.
7:52 p.m. Donnarumma in goal, Danilo rather than Wijnaldum and Neymar on the bench. Mauricio Pochettino continues his alternation in the cages of PSG and prefers the Italian Gianluigi Donnarruma to the former Madrid player Keylor Navas. Freshly crowned African champion with Senegal, Idrissa Gueye starts on the bench and sees his place go to Danilo Pereira, more in legs than Wijnaldum. As expected, the attacking trio will be made up of Angel Di Maria, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé at kick-off, but Neymar should come on during the game.
The Parisian composition is as follows: Donnarumma – Hakimi, Marquinhos (cap.), Kimpembe, Nuno Mendes – Verratti, Paredes, Danilo – Di Maria, Messi, Mbappé.
7:45 p.m. For Pochettino, “we will have to show respect to Real”. “This type of match always requires giving the best of yourself,” said the Parisian coach at the microphone of Canal +. We talked a lot regarding how we should play and show our strength. The most important thing is to play football and show respect to the opponent because Real Madrid is a big club in Europe. »
7:41 p.m. Pochettino speaks out on the Neymar and Donnarumma cases. ” Neymar will come off the bench, he told Canal+. He will not play from the start. I don’t know if he will come back sooner or later in the second half, it depends on the face of the match. “Regarding the choice of Donnarumma to watch over the Parisian cages, the Argentine coach recalled that it was a difficult dilemma: “It’s unfair, we would like to make them both players but we have to do a choice. I have two top goalkeepers and tonight I choose Donnarumma. »
7:34 p.m. Camavinga, the next generation of the Madrid midfielder. Bought last summer following exploding in the eyes of the world two years ago, the young French midfielder is slowly making a place for itself in the Merengues squad. He learns daily alongside one of the most highly rated trio in the history of football (Modric Kroos, Casemiro) while waiting to take over from him.
19h28. The Parisian and Madrid players have just arrived at the Parc des Princes.
7:25 p.m. And if the key to the match was in the middle? If the duel between Benzema and Mbappé is expected by all football fans, the fate of the meeting might be decided in midfield according to Omar Da Fonseca. Accustomed to commenting on Real Madrid matches in La Liga, the consultant believes that the Parisian midfielder will have to particularly succeed in muzzling the German Toni Kroos.
7:19 p.m. Benzema as a source of inspiration for Mbappé? For Emmanuel Petit, the young French striker “must be inspired” by his elder, in particular in his ability to organize the collective game of his team in the offensive phases.
7:13 p.m. Remote duel. While Karim Benzema will indeed start on the Madrid side, his opposition with his Parisian counterpart and team-mate Kylian Mbappé will be one of the attractions of this round of 16. Le Parisien deciphers this duel between two football lovers who might soon play under the same colors in the club…
19h07. It is Gianluigi Donnarumma who will start in the Parisian goals.
7:05 p.m. The providential return of Benzema and Ferland Mendy on the left. On the Real Madrid side, the sensation is obviously the reinstatement of captain Karim Benzema at the forefront of the Merengues attack, three weeks following his relapse in the league. The tricolor center forward will be surrounded by Vinicius and Asensio while the inexhaustible midfielder with three Casemiro-Modric-Kroos is maintained. Also note the tenure of Ferland Mendy as left-back.
The Madrid squad is as follows: Courtois – Carvajal, Militao, Alaba, Mendy – Modric, Casemiro, Kroos – Asensio, Benzema (cap.), Vinicius.
19 hours. Good evening and welcome to the clash of the knockout stages of the Champions League between PSG and Real Madrid.
