MIGHTY MESSI SINKS CITY
LIONEL Messi scored his first Paris Saint-Germain goal on Tuesday and it was a significant one, helping put Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City to the sword in a 2-0 Champions League win for the French club.
Messi’s goal was stunning and also so typical, as he burst forward from the right and played a one-two with Kylian Mbappe on the edge of the box, holding off Aymeric Laporte before sending a firsttime strike into the net.
It raised the roof at the Parc des Princes, as PSG supporters celebrated seeing the six-time Ballon d’Or winner open his account for the club he joined in August. “The most important thing was to
win the game against a great side, one of the favourites,” Messi told broadcaster Canal Plus.
“It’s true that I was getting desperate to score my first goal. I hadn’t played much recently and I had only played once here at home but I am settling into the team little by little.”
Idrissa Gana Gueye had given the hosts an early lead to leave City chasing the game.
Guardiola’s side, which defeated the French club in the semi-finals last season before losing the final, dominated large spells between the two goals, but its finishing let it down.
It will especially rue the
moment in the first half when Raheem Sterling and Bernardo Silva each hit the bar, but City will still be confident of progressing to the last 16.
“We controlled them and unfortunately we could not score. That’s football. Nothing to say except my biggest compliment to the team,” Guardiola told BT Sport.
Of Messi, he said: “We know it’s impossible to control Leo.
“He didn’t see a lot of the ball, but he’s unstoppable.”
PSG and Club Brugge, which won 2-1 at RB Leipzig, are level on four points, with City on three points.
The Premier League champion will hope to take its revenge on PSG when they
meet in the reverse fixture, but this was a night for the Qatar-owned rivals of Abu Dhabi-backed City to bask in the glow of having Messi.
The former Barcelona man had missed PSG’s last two games with a knee knock but the expectation was always that he was being saved for this glamour tie.
However, the surprise star for the French side this season has been Gueye, the Senegal midfielder who has four goals after opening the scoring eight minutes in.
Neymar failed to properly connect with Mbappe’s cutback but the ball fell to Gueye and he fired high into the net.
Having kept Chelsea at bay in a 1-0 win at Stamford
Bridge at the weekend, City was chasing the game.
Guardiola had made two changes, with Gabriel Jesus and Phil Foden dropping out for Sterling and Riyad Mahrez.
Sterling was involved when the visitors squandered a chance to equalise in comical fashion as the half-hour mark approached.
The England forward’s header came back off the bar and on its way down brushed Gianluigi Donnarumma, who was making his first Champions League appearance after being preferred to Keylor Navas in the Paris goal.
Silva was left with an easy chance to convert the loose ball from barely 2m but somehow also hit the bar.