Paris Saint-Germain 0-1 Bayern Munich: Kingsley Coman gives Germans deserved first-leg advantage in heavyweight Champions League last-16 tie, as Kylian Mbappe has equaliser ruled out by VAR after returning from injury off the bench
Paris Saint-Germain had a wonderful World Cup. Lionel Messi was the winning captain and Golden Ball recipient. Kylian Mbappe scored a hat-trick in the final and won the Golden Boot.
But the club’s Qatari owners have not funded this project to see those on the payroll lift gold in their own back desert. It is continental silver they so desire. For a decade, the sands of time and billions of Qatari riyals have slipped through their fingers in pursuit of the club game’s ultimate prize.
This campaign, in which they marched unbeaten through the group stage, looks like being another mirage.
The truth is, PSG just aren’t very good. There is no failure of system that will correct itself given time. They were operating to plan here, one that does not extend far beyond waiting for Messi or Neymar to conjure a magic trick. The reality is that it is the other fella, Mbappe, who invariably pulls rabbits from hats.
They were trailing to Kingsley Coman’s 53rd-minute strike when Mbappe, fit enough only for the bench, was introduced to the mightiest roar of the evening. It sounded more like a cry for help.
Kinglsey Coman scored the only goal on Tuesday as Bayern Munich beat Paris Saint Germain 1-0
It went straight through Gianluigi Donnarumma, who should have done better
Kyllian Mbappe put the ball in the net twice after coming off the bench but both were ruled out for offside
There was an improvement and Mbappe had two goals disallowed for offside. But it is Bayern, despite a late red card for defender Benjamin Pavard, who are strong favourites to progress after an exact repeat of the scoreline and scorer from the 2020 Champions League final.
And it was a fine effort by former PSG forward Coman. Alphonso Davies was introduced at half-time for Joao Cancelo. PSG seemed oblivious to the change, for it was as if they had left the Canadian all alone amid the vast greenery of Les Jardins du Trocadero when he sized a cross for Coman to connect with a volley that had too much power for Gianluigi Donnarumma.
The ball had squirmed under the Italian but, without him, the contest would have been over within 10 minutes of that goal. Twice he saved impressively from Eric Choupo-Moting.
At least a football match had belatedly broken out, on the back of a build-up dominated by Neymar’s confirmation of a dressing-room bust-up and the hunt for the mole who leaked the story.
Lionel Messi struggled to find his way in the game as Bayern marshaled him well
Benjamin Pavard was sent off in second-half injury time for a second bookable offence
16-year-old Warren Zaire-Emery became the youngest starter in UCL knockout history
The inclusion of PSG’s Warren Zaire-Emery, the 16-year-old midfielder, was something of an antidote to the pre-match poison. He was not born when team-mates Messi and Sergio Ramos were playing in the Champions League. Here, he became the youngest starter in the competition’s knockout stages.
But it was also a bold call by Christophe Galtier, given the success or otherwise of PSG’s entire season rests on the outcome of this tie. Not that he looked like a teenager. When in the vicinity of Messi, Neymar and Marco Verratti, it was the strapping Zaire-Emery affording his seniors the protection.
Given the stakes for both clubs – Bayern, too, are judged by European performance – we expected a cautious affair. It was worse than that during a dismal opening half in which only Bayern midfielder Joshua Kimmich found the target, and that a plucky swing from 25 yards.
Messi had one free-kick which he took an age to measure. It was hardly worth the wait, and Michael Oliver called half-time on the back of it failing to clear the wall. For PSG, it did not get much better.
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