SHOWTIME IN PARIS
Star-studded PSG play host to Valencia in Champions League; Beckham may start
Paris, March 5: Paris Saint-Germain are under pressure to clinch their place in the quarterfinals of the Champions League at Valencia’s expense after their latest below-par domestic performance.
The French club are top of Ligue 1 and lead Valencia 21 from the first leg of their last-16 tie, but a 1-0 defeat away to Reims on Saturday came as a blow to Carlo Ancelotti’s squad before Wednesday’s game at the Parc des Princes.
Furthermore, bizarre comments by sporting director Leonardo — who spent two years as a player at Valencia in the early 1990s — will come back to bite PSG if they are unable to see off their Spanish opponents.
“Maybe we are not made to play in games like these,” claimed the Brazilian after the defeat to a Reims side that had won just once in their previous 19 matches in all competitions. “Perhaps we have a team designed more for Europe than the league.”
The often tepid nature of their domestic performances this season and the contrast with their outstanding results in Europe would appear to back up Leonardo’s claims, but for a man in his position to say such a thing was still a major surprise.
The massive investment in PSG’s squad by their Qatari owners has, after all, been made with domestic as well as European success in mind. Nevertheless, attentions are now fully fixed on the continental scene, and vital away goals from Ezequiel Lavezzi and Javier Pastore mean that PSG have the edge coming into the return leg of this tie, even if a late Adil Rami goal in the first leg allowed Valencia to maintain hope.
— AFP