- Emlyn Begley
- BBC
Paris Saint-Germain was no closer to winning the Champions League with Messi than without the Argentine star
Paris Saint-Germain’s 11th attempt to win the Champions League has turned into more misery – is it time for the French side to ‘rip their blueprint’ and start over?
Bayern Munich destroyed the hopes of the Parisian team in the round of sixteen of the tournament, following beating it 3-0 on aggregate in the two-legged matches.
Paris Saint-Germain failed to score for more than 180 minutes, despite having among its ranks the two most expensive players of all time: Neymar, who was injured in the second leg, and Kylian Mbappe. This is in addition to Lionel Messi, the greatest player in the history of football, according to many.
Former Chelsea star Joe Cole told BT Sport: “The Paris Saint-Germain project to win the Champions League was launched and the team ended up miles away from the title.”
Former England midfielder Owen Hargreaves said: “PSG has a lot of great individual elements. It’s not a team, it’s a shame. They put a lot of legendary players next to each other, but it just so happens that they’re falling behind.”
Paris Saint-Germain coach Christophe Galtier said: “It is a great disappointment. We have to deal with it and accept it.”
“I don’t know if it’s a lesson we’re learning, but there’s a lot of frustration,” Galtier told the BBC. “If we had scored, it would have been different, but we haven’t.”
New owners dream
Paris Saint-Germain has spent more than one billion pounds since its Qatari takeover in 2012, and has won eight of the ten French League titles and 12 domestic cups with the new owners.
However, the Champions League was the dream of these new owners of Paris Saint-Germain, and that dream remained elusive. And following reaching the quarter-finals in the first four seasons of the Champions League competition, Paris Saint-Germain came out of the eighth final in five of the last seven seasons of the tournament.
The exception was in the 2020 season, when Paris Saint-Germain reached the final and lost it to Bayern Munich.
Paris Saint-Germain has always featured high caliber stars within its ranks – but without enough harmony and balance within the team.
“They don’t have an identity,” Joe Cole tells the BBC. “What’s this combination? They are improvising. There doesn’t seem to be a plan. It’s a distorted team.”
The former Chelsea playmaker added: “They have bought some of the best players of the last 20 years. The young French players scattered all over Europe can fill in the role of these stars.” [في باريس سان جيرمان] At a quarter of the cost and with an identity that attracts fans.”
“Paris Saint-Germain has to tear up their entire plan and start over,” says Hargreaves. “They have a young group of talented players who are the best in the world.”
And regarding these young people, Hargreaves asks: “Why do they go to Salzburg, Dortmund or Leicester? They should all play for Paris Saint-Germain.”
But what regarding Messi, Mbappe, and Neymar?
image copyright Getty Images
Mbappe is the most goalscorer ever in the history of Paris Saint-Germain
Mbappe is one of the best successful deals concluded by Paris Saint-Germain, who bought the player from Monaco for 165 million pounds in 2017, becoming the top scorer in the history of the French club, with 201 goals in 248 matches.
Mbappe led his country to win the World Cup in 2018. Mbappe is one of the few Parisians in the ranks of Paris Saint-Germain. And some believe that Mbappe should leave the team to write his career as one of the best players in the world of football at the present time.
French journalist Julien Laurens says: “Mbappe has another year in his contract, and even if he wanted to leave, they would not let that happen, and then he would stay there.”
“He didn’t win,” Lawrence told the BBC [مبابي] Champions League, but he is still in his twenty-fourth year. And he said it would be a great addition to be the first to win this tournament for Paris Saint-Germain.”
As for Messi, the 35-year-old Argentine, his contract with Paris Saint-Germain expires next summer.
It is believed that Messi wants to stay, but he has not signed a new contract with the French club yet.
Messi has won a record seven Ballon d’Or awards, and scored 29 goals in a total of 64 matches with Paris Saint-Germain since he came to him from Barcelona two years ago.
But Messi failed to lead the French team to the dream of winning the Champions League.
As for the 31-year-old Brazilian striker Neymar, he left Barcelona – where he was playing in the shadow of Messi – coming to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 for a world record amount of 200 million pounds sterling.
Neymar’s contract with the French club was marked by injuries, and the season ended prematurely last week with news that the Brazilian needed ankle surgery.
Julian Lawrence believes that those in charge of Paris Saint-Germain also “tried to sell [نيمار] Last year they will try to do it once more.”