PSG ‘were in the group of death’

LUIS Enrique has highlighted how PSG were thrown into the “group of death” with Newcastle United after his side reached the Champions League semi-finals.

PSG will meet Borussia Dortmund once again – just a few months after the two teams did battle in Group F with Newcastle and AC Milan. It says a lot about the standard of the group that both PSG and Dortmund have both gone on to progress to the last four after knocking out Real Sociedad and Barcelona and PSV and Atletico Madrid respectively.

Enrique drew attention to the group following PSG’S 4-1 quarter-final second-leg win at the Nou Camp on Tuesday night after the Spaniard previously saw his side suffer a defeat by the same margin against Newcastle at St James’ Park back in October.

“We were in the group of death,” the PSG boss told reporters. “Dortmund, Newcastle and Milan – it was the most difficult group of all.”

Newcastle also came just minutes from defeating PSG in Paris – only for the hosts to be awarded a controversial penalty at the death. Following a VAR check, Tino Livramento was bizarrely penalised for handball – even though the defender’s arm was in a natural position after the ball ricocheted off his chest onto his elbow – and Kylian Mbappe duly stepped up from the spot to cancel out Alexander Isak’s firsthalf opener to make it 1-1.

The result meant that Newcastle’s fate was out of their own hands going into the final round of the group when a win against PSG would have left Howe’s team in second ahead of their clash against AC Milan. Newcastle, regardless, ended up losing 2-1 against the Rossoneri, following substitute Samuel Chukwueze’s late winner, but only after the Magpies poured forward in search of the winner they needed at 1-1. Had PSG not converted that controversial penalty against Newcastle, a point against AC Milan would ultimately have been enough for Newcastle to progress after the Ligue 1 champions could only draw in Dortmund.

Just as PSG benefited from a huge call against Newcastle, Barcelona boss Xavi hit out at referee Istvan Kovacs’ decision to send off defender Ronald Araujo when his side were 1-0 up on the night and 4-2 up on aggregate.

He said: “I told the referee his performance was very bad. He was a disaster. He killed the tie.”