Dembele and Ntcham can still hold their heads high in defeat
● Celtic’s French pair return home and find themselves on end of a harsh lesson
It wouldn’t exactly have required a lengthy brainstorming session in the production offices of BT Sport to come up with ideas for their preview package for Celtic’s Champions League trip to Paris last night.
The obvious interview candidates were the two Frenchmen in the ranks of the Scottish title holders and so, voila, they planked Moussa Dembele and Olivier Ntcham down in front of their cameras for a sit-down chat screened ahead of kick-off. The 21-year-olds aren’t the most loquacious subjects in a media setting, but they didn’t require to be to warrant such attention.
Inside 57 seconds of the encounter in the Parc des Princes that marked their first senior club outings in their homeland – an “emotional” moment, former Manchester Citymidfielderntchamadmitted – BT would have been entitled to feel smug about their picks for previewing the Paris Saint-germain tie.
The false hope-giving strike netted in that instant by Dembele, who whacked the ball into the net via an Edinson Cavani deflection after a corner played to him just inside the box by Ntcham, provided another indication of the forward’s flair for the dramatic.
Forherehewas,backatthe club that provided him with his grounding between the ages of eight and 16, finally gracing the Parc des Princes and, in the blink of an eye, ensuring the occasion was not going to pass him by.
Indeed, in bagging the first goal conceded by a PSG rampant in Group B, Dembele made his manager Brendan Rodgers’ pre-match prediction that he had the ability to reach the very top of the game look prophetic.
But Celtic then unravelled all too soon. They had no answer to the £400 million strikeforce of Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Cavani and began to hemorrhage goals. Yet, for all that the home side looked as if they could score at will – and Neymar might have helped himself to more than a double – Dembele didn’t disappear from proceedings and Ntcham, above, didn’t look out of his depth.
The pair seemed at home in their setting in more ways than one. Patently, they were determined to show their native audience that they are young players making their way in the game.
Not that knowledgeable French football followers would have needed to be informed of that fact. It is only a week since Dembele claimed a 12-minute hattrick for the France under-21 side against Slovenia… a triple that followed a corking free-kick strike by Ntcham in the young French team’s previous outing.
Dembele, indeed, might have taken his goal tally to ten in nine games – under-21 outings included – when he drove into the penalty area early in the second period, only to lash an effort wide.
He could have had a penalty just before the interval, and also found time to tee up Ntcham for a clear sighting of goal midway through the first half where his countryman produced a flashing drive he was unfortunate to see whizz wide.
The 7-1 scoreline ensured that the encounter was hardly one that Dembele and Ntcham could truly savour, the former withdrawn in favour of Leigh Griffiths in 76 minutes. Ntcham, meanwhile, gave way to Eboue Kouassi eight minutes earlier. Yet, they will feel they stood up in dastardly difficult circumstances.
With PSG having only dropped four points across their 13 league games unbeaten this season they are hardly the first Frenchmen to have been been given the runaround by a team who have now rampaged to a record 24-goal haul in the Champions League group stages. With still one game to come.
Dembele, in particular, o doubt dreams of one day playingforateamcapableofbeing able to dish out such humilating defeats at the highest level instead of being on the receiving end of them. He might get there one day. It won’t, of course, be in a Celtic shirt.
“In bagging the first goal conceded by PSG in Group B, Dembele made his manager Brendan Rodgers’ pre-match prediction that he had the ability to reach the very top look prophetic”