There is no quick fix to PSG’s lack of prestige
LIVERPOOL supporters have a lot to be happy about right now. They may be out of the FA Cup but are third in the league and are all but in the Champions League quarterfinals after playing just one leg.
As if the five unanswered goals that emptied the Estadio do Dragao last week were not welcome enough, three of them were scored by a player in need of a confidence boost. Sadio Mane began to look himself again at some point between his fortunate first and his emphatic third. With Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah already in imperious form, that can only be good news.
Yet what should have pleased the travelling Kop more than anything else is the manner of the victory and the control that Liverpool enjoyed from the moment they broke the deadlock to the final whistle. Though Porto pressed in the initial stages, Jurgen Klopp’s players never looked like losing the lead once they had snatched it.
That, considering this team’s recent history, is significant.
Supporters need only to look back to their last European trip to see how quickly this team can collapse. Memories of November’s surrender against Sevilla have not faded. “It’s not that we forgot that. You always have it a little bit,” Klopp admitted in his post-match press conference, when the most frustrating night of Liverpool’s season so far was referenced. “It’s part of our history unfortunately.”
Thankfully, there would be no repeat of that collapse in Porto. Instead there was ‘game management’, that intangible but discernible quality that BEFORE Paris Saint-Germain’s late collapse, and before Real Madrid roused themselves, a former Bernabeu president had raised a prescient point about the two clubs that effectively predicted the 3-1 home victory.
“That quality (of prestige) is like wine,” said Ramon Calderon, who was in charge at Real between 2006 and 2009. “It’s a question of time. It’s true that PSG have a built a fantastic team, through a lot of money but it’s a very good team. Now they have to show they can win. I think what happened last year with Barcelona is instructive. No team that has that prestige, that has that culture from its history, loses in the Champions League like that: conceding three goals in 10 minutes, or going out after winning 4-0.”
It is a view that may well be properly tested, because this PSG need something from Real that is at least similarly submissive to that to go through to the quarterfinals, and prevent this entire season being a wash-out after making such waves.
It is also, however, a view with plenty of truth. PSG are fighting the waves of history as they try to build the future. There is a reason Real have al- ways been the club of the famous continental remontada (comeback) rather than infamous collapse. Because, in 47 previous seasons in the European Cup and Champions League – and countless more ties – there have only been six occasions when Real have been eliminated after winning a first leg. That hasn’t happened in 11 years.
There have meanwhile only been two occasions when they have been eliminated after winning a first leg by two goals. One of them was 1979-80 to Grasshoppers, but the other provides more solace for PSG. It was in 2003-04 to another French side in Monaco, and involved manager Zinedine Zidane when he was a player, and there was similar end-of-an-era talk about the indulged original Galacticos.
They didn’t have a proper defensive midfielder or commanding coach to put tactical discipline on those stars, and it told.
The only problem is that this description better serves PSG right now, and there’s also the sense there’s a more profound quality to this Real, something that the French really need to learn.
It is why PSG’s genuinely solid initial display was rendered irrelevant, and why it would be foolish to overstate the surprising lack of quality in this game as a reason why the winner of the Champions League will not come from this tie.
The defending champions just have an accumulated nous, and experience, that sees them through such tests.
They know how to handle themselves, how to remain assertive and focused and not lose their heads when it looks like they might lose the game. That was exactly the case between 60 and 83 minutes on Wednesday.
This isn’t some intangible pie-in-thesky reference to the subconscious to try and explain the game, either. It has tangible visible effects, like with the way Sergio Ramos got the defence to marshal Neymar’s dangerous-looking runs into safe alleys, or even the highly cynical foul that Ronaldo committed in the build-up to his goal.
That is the type of calculation that comes from calm minds that have been in these situations before, and know how to assess what’s happening and adapt. That is also something that is naturally a lot harder to do if, in the moment, you’re worried about the pattern and stakes of the game, about the consequences.
This genuinely isn’t something that can be imported, or even brought in with two or three experienced figures. It is something that teams must learn on the job together, not to mention the nuances of the players next to them.
It still makes some difference, and can make the difference when a side is not at their best, as PSG found.
“They scored when we were at our best,” Unai Emery complained. PSG’s best, however, remains so skewed by external factors – and particularly those external to their league.
“We always say the same things, we always do the same things, and in the end, we are always floored in the same way,” Adrien Rabiot so tellingly said. “It’s all well and good putting eight goals past Dijon, but it’s in matches like this that you have to stand up and be counted.”
It just still feels like they haven’t had enough exposure to matches like this, with their limited experience itself diluted by the processions in Ligue 1 they have become so accustomed to. It does sometimes look as if that higher level of opposition can suddenly stun them.
They now need to overturn all of this in the second leg, and need to make Real Madrid second-guess themselves in a European tie.
That is something that feels far more difficult than just getting two goals. – The Independent