Edinson Cavani’s talismanic Coupe de la Ligue final performance in the win over Monaco marked his continuing rise out of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s shadowBy Adam White and Eric Devin for Get French Football NewsWhistles rang round the Parc des Princes. As Ángel Di María’s shot ricocheted down from the bar, with Metz keeper Thomas Didillon stranded, Edinson Cavani conspired to embarrassingly scuff his rebound effort wide, the goal at his mercy, much to the Parisian crowd’s increasing frustration. This was not an isolated incident. Although PSG eased to a 3-0 victory back in August, Cavani, thrust into the spotlight of the centre-forward role vacated by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, cut a disillusioned and embittered figure. He choked.Thirty-one points clear and 35 goals better...
Gruelling festive fixture lists may not be good preparation for playing Champions League football in February but Tottenham were already out by ChristmasEnglish football may be about to plunge into one of its regular periods of introspection now that Leicester City are left as the only standard-bearers for the Premier League in the Champions League quarter-finals, though the rest of Europe will not find anything too surprising in this week’s developments. Related: Monaco’s Tiemoué Bakayoko condemns Manchester City to away-goal defeat Related: Arsène Wenger has been living on borrowed time at Arsenal for too long | Richard Williams Continue reading...
By selecting Thiago Silva ahead of Presnel Kimpembe at centre-half the coach abandoned the meritocracy which was bringing progress at PSG and has lost more than just an extraordinary Champions League tie as a result“The return of winter.” “The Parisian wreck.” “Unspeakable.” “A huge mess.” “The height of disillusionment.” The Parisian papers and France’s leading sports dailies were unsparing in their assessment of Paris Saint-Germain’s incredible 6-1 defeat by Barcelona. Conceding three goals in the final 10 minutes was a dismal end to the French side’s Champions League campaign, but to do it having secured a seemingly insurmountable first-leg lead was indeed unspeakable.Losing by that margin alone was painful, but doubly so after how the visitors had come back into...
The Brazilian has been criticised for a lack of goals but against PSG he led from the front, culminating in seven minutes and 17 seconds in which he won the tie“As long as there’s a 1% chance, we’ll have 99% faith,” Neymar wrote in the aftermath of Barcelona’s 4-0 destruction in Paris – but by the time he stood over the ball the odds didn’t even look that good. They didn’t to everyone else, anyway. 1%? If only. Their first comeback had failed, crushed by Edinson Cavani; the second had barely started and was surely beyond them now: Paris Saint‑Germain’s away goal had left them needing three goals in 30 minutes and 27 of them had passed. Related: Luis Enrique:...
The 4-0 hammering by PSG has raised questions about a team that has been called a mess tactically and physically, with no youth system or leadership“We tried to score to get back into the tie but they got the third goal and then the fourth,” the Barcelona manager, Luis Enrique, said at the end of his darkest night. His words were telling but not even entirely true.It was not that Paris Saint-Germain had scored a goal; it was that they had scored a third and then a fourth, and anyway it was not as if the visitors had been caught chasing the game, a quick counter or some fluke goal cruelly ending it. When Ángel Di María curled in the...