The French champions could not have dreamed of a better start. Opposed from the start to their toughest opponent in Pool H, they dominated Juve, which is now only a shadow of the dominating team that it was for so many years in Italy, and have already made the task easier for the rest of this group stage.
With this first success in the history of PSG against the Bianconeri, the new Parisian coach Christophe Galtier, who remained on a catastrophic C1 campaign at the head of Lille in 2019/2020 (1 draw, 5 defeats in 6 games), can congratulations on having crossed without incident the first big piece standing in his way since his appointment at the head of the club of the capital, on May 4.
The path leading to the final, scheduled for June 10, 2023 in Istanbul, is still paved with many obstacles for a team that has so often disappointed when it comes to the knockout matches. But Paris marked its territory and demonstrated that it had the potential to go far and erase the terrible failure of the previous edition in the round of 16 against Real Madrid, despite a defensive sector still under construction.
Because the PSG has in its workforce a player capable of martyrizing any rear guard on his own. With Kylian Mbappé, Paris can see the rest with serenity and Juventus learned it the hard way. The one that Turin captain Leonardo Bonucci described on Monday as “stratospheric” splashed the meeting with his entire class.
Ideally served by Neymar on a ladle of genius, the French world champion opened the scoring in the 6th minute before doing it again in the 22nd after an exchange with Achraf Hakimi.
– Response to the controversy –
What to answer on the ground to the big controversy born of his giggles during the pre-match press conference after a question on the possibility of using the train rather than the plane when traveling by PSG.
In recent months, the image of Mbappé, who has become the gondola head of the club with his extension until 2025, has been tarnished by unfortunate episodes, such as his showdown over image rights in the France team or his sulk against Montpellier (5-2), August 13 in the league. But with the ball, the Bondy prodigy has always been able to respond and he proved it again against Juve with the 5th double of his career in the Champions League.
His performance, however, was not without blemishes. Launched by Messi, the Frenchman forgot to serve Neymar at the far post (52nd), causing the annoyance of the Brazilian star, before twice missing a 3rd goal from close range (63rd, 90th).
To go beyond the matches in March and hope to see Istanbul, Paris cannot however rely solely on its magic trio Mbappé-Neymar-Messi. He will also need an iron defense, which the team does not yet have at the start of the season.
If goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma brilliantly intervened on close range headers from Arkadiusz Milik (18th) and Dusan Vlahovic (56th), he was guilty of a hazardous aerial exit which caused the reduction of the Turin score , signed Weston Mckennie (53rd).
Everything is therefore not completely in place on the Parisian side, but PSG is still on the right track in C1 before two trips to Haifa (September 14) and on the lawn of Benfica Lisbon (October 5).
