There is something strange about watching this iteration of Paris Saint-Germain. This is a club that, transformed by Qatari wealth, muscled and swaggered its way into European football’s elite and became a serious player on the Champions League stage. This season they are at growing risk of leaving that stage with barely a whimper.
A 1-0 defeat by Bayern Munich last night left PSG in 26th place in the Champions League standings with three games to play. The competition’s new format makes it hard to talk permutations, but there is no denying they are up against it with games against Red Bull Salzburg (away), Manchester City (home) and Stuttgart (away) to come.
The desired top-eight finish looks way out of reach and even the minimum target of a play-off spot, by finishing in the top 24 of the 36-team standings, is now in jeopardy. “If we look at the rankings, we are worried,” their Portugal midfielder Vitinha told Canal+ afterwards.
What are PSG right now? Their coach Luis Enrique talks about a “project” for the long term, but what is it supposed to look like now? Top of Ligue 1, that goes without saying, but they have to show more character, more conviction and more quality if they are to do more than make up the numbers at European level.
They had to change after what club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi termed the “flashy bling bling” era — when adding Lionel Messi and Sergio Ramos to a squad that already included Neymar and Kylian Mbappe meant big wages, disharmony and a loss of cohesion on the pitch — but a stripping-back exercise seems to have gone too far. They are now a team whose lack of killer instinct and match-winning quality has seen them score just three goals in five Champions League game this season.
Confidence in the PSG project is diminishing. The French sports daily newspaper’s front page on Wednesday morning read, simply, “Le Declassement” — the downgrading or declassification. Inside, French sportswriter Vincent Duluc wrote that PSG has become a club that “no longer exists in Europe”, turning his fire not on the players but on the club hierarchy and on the coach. Luis Enrique’s “arrogance”, he wrote, is at odds with a record of just six wins in 17 Champions League games since taking over at PSG at the start of last season.
They lined up at the Allianz Arena without a recognised centre-forward, with Luis Enrique once more opting to deploy two wingers, Ousmane Dembele and Bradley Barcola, up front. Goncalo Ramos, building up his match fitness after an ankle injury, was eventually summoned from the bench along with Marco Asensio, but PSG’s goal threat was minimal even before Demeble was sent off for a second bookable offence in the 56th minute. The days when PSG had one of the most feared forward lines in Europe — not just Messi-Neymar-Mbappe but previously Cavani-Lavezzi-Ibrahimovic — suddenly feel very distant.
PSG are strong enough to dominate Ligue 1, where they are six points clear at the top and scoring an average of three goals a game, but an unfavourable Champions League draw has pitted them against Arsenal, Atletico Madrid and Bayern and they have lost all three. That has been compounded by a failure to beat PSV Eindhoven at home last month. Even in their opening game against Girona, they required a last-minute own goal by goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga, spilling a Nuno Mendes cross-shot into the net, to claim what is their only win in this season’s competition to date.
For much of the last decade, PSG seemed comfortable with the mental and tactical leap required to flip between Ligue 1 and Champions League. It was only in moments of extreme pressure, in the knock-out stages, that they were found wanting.
This season it looks more difficult for their young team. Across their 12 Ligue 1 matches this season (10 wins, two draws) they have averaged 68.7 per cent possession, second only to Bayern’s in Europe’s “Big Five” leagues. Luis Enrique made the point beforehand that, with “two teams built to have possession … whoever doesn’t have it will suffer” — and for much of the game, particularly in the first half, that was PSG.
Vitinha was his usual self, but the talented teenager Warren Zaire-Emery was peripheral on the right-hand side of midfield, completing just seven passes by the time Bayern took the lead in the 38th minute. More frustrating was the lack of pressure applied by PSG’s forwards when Bayern were in possession. The difference in quality with Bayern’s attacking players such as Jamal Musiala and Kingsley Coman, both on and off the ball, was quite stark.
There was a more encouraging spell in the second half when PSG vaguely threatened an equaliser, but they did not look like a team with heavyweight aspirations. And maybe, with their Qatari owners stung by the high-profile failure of the “flashy bling bling” era, they cannot be described as such in the short term. Al-Khelaifi told reporters recently that winning the Champions League is not among the club’s immediate objectives this season. Their priority, he stated, was to rebuild under Luis Enrique so that this young squad can mature and re-emerge as serious contenders in Europe over the coming years.
That sounds reasonable enough — particularly if you can remain dominant in your domestic league while rebuilding, as PSG’s enormous wealth allows. But this new squad has been assembled at great expense, a process led by sporting director Luis Campos, and it seems damning that two of last year’s biggest signings, Manuel Ugarte and Randal Kolo Muani, have fallen out of favour so quickly. Ugarte is now at Manchester United and Kolo Muani has started just two games for PSG all season, left on the bench once more against Bayern.
A focus on younger talent brings a little more patience when it comes to performances and results on the pitch, but, as with Chelsea’s colossal outlay over the past couple of seasons, there is a danger in simply assuming that, because talented young players have been bought, progress is inevitable.
Russian goalkeeper Matvey Safanov was one of the more curious summer signings, arriving from Krasnodar for a reported €20m fee. He got his chance last night, preferred to the out-of-form Gianluigi Donnarumma, but his failure to deal with Joshua Kimmich’s corner in the 38th minute presented Bayern defender Kim Min-jae with the only goal of the game. Some of Safanov’s team-mates felt he had been impeded, but the goalkeeper’s reaction, chucking the ball to the centre-circle in readiness for the restart while the VAR check was still going, seemed to speak volumes.
There was another PSG grievance over Dembele’s red card for what looked like a trivial second bookable offence when he slid in on Alphonso Davies. Luis Enrique said afterwards that he preferred not to complain about the match officials or their decisions. He appeared to be talking about Dembele’s action, rather than referee Istvan Kovacs’ decision, when he described the sending-off as a “big mistake”.
The red card probably didn’t affect the outcome in Munich, but it means Dembele will be suspended for the game in Salzburg on December 10. Ramos will hope to press his claim in the meantime, but he is yet to score in eight Champions League appearances for PSG. Barcola has one goal in 14 games in the competition. Goals have not been a problem in Ligue 1, but the Champions League under this format, with this particularly unforgiving draw, has required a step up in class. PSG are struggling with that.
We have become used to seeing PSG beaten in dramatic circumstances in epic encounters in the Champions League knock-out stages, falling narrowly short when the stakes are highest and the pressure at its most intense. Right now they are in danger of falling a long way short of that.
(Top photo: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
