Stronger and ultimately better. Rewarded for all his efforts. By who ? No need to guess, the story was written, like a destiny that is forged every day, pushing the limits of the credible, the beautiful, the possible, of life and of football. Kyliesque and stunning magic, with PSG once again victorious in added time, its only trademark this season. It is painful for the hearts and the journalists who fight against time but it is absolutely wonderful for the thrills, the sensations and the football, what it says, how it is analyzed and dissected.
The other good news for Paris is that Real feared him. Carlo Ancelotti has implemented an anti-Kylian Mbappé tactic by placing his team very low on the field, to avoid leaving spaces in the back of his defense that the attacker would have swallowed. It would then have taken an individual feat from Leo Messi or Angel Di Maria. But the Italian coach watches the games and he knows that the last time it happened he had to work at Everton. He had forgotten just one thing: the feat, the dribble, the difference could come from Mbappé himself.
Constricted into a compact wall, to the detriment of offensive animation and renouncing a certain idea of football that these knockout stages of the Champions League normally announce, Real have long believed to win their non-match and allowed Gianluigi Donnarumma to reuse his jersey in the next game — he didn’t sweat once. With the double difficulty that one day, on the return, he will have to attack well and that, in the case, he lost Casemiro and Ferland Mendy, suspended on March 9. Liners are no better at these positions. And, now, there is an additional goal to go up.
Messi missed it all
The chest also held until the end or almost because it is written that the Pulga will miss all its penalties in the round of 16 at the Parc des Princes. A year after the one rejected by Keylor Navas against Barcelona when he was still a footballer, the seven-time Ballon d’Or “France Football” confirmed his poor form by stumbling over Thibaut Courtois (62nd) after a foul on Mbappé.
The anti-crack plan thus remained an uncertain and dangerous tactic throughout the game, with an endlessly creative player in an unpredictable sport. Real played with matches and Paris managed to light the fire. And Messi missed everything, not just his shot from eleven yards. He showed constant difficulty in situating himself, in finding passing angles, as if he were absent from himself. Worrying and sad.
Returning to football twenty minutes from the end, Neymar showed some promising signs after two and a half months of absence. In three weeks, normally, he will be more on his legs, more in rhythm, more aggressive, better in everything, which gives a tense, harsh, nervous return leg to aspire to, on a thread that separates chasms. This story between two clubs that do not want to fall before spring retains an infernal suspense.