PSG braced for glorious chance fraught with danger
In the weeks since the Champions League draw, Thomas Tuchel has been studiously preparing his Paris Saint-Germain players for the danger of Atalanta’s one-on-one game. The German is aware Gian Piero Gasperini's game is like little his stars will have ever faced before.
He is also well aware that proper preparation can mitigate some of the… emotional surprise his side have suffered in this competition in the recent past. Tuchel has been showing his players footage of how a PSG move, or one of his defenders bringing the ball out of the back, can instantly be turned into an Atalanta attack. The Italians are so good in this approach that they can greatly level the odds in such games against
superior sides, and turn any situation - or any game - into a 50-50.
That reflects much of this quarter-final for PSG. It is a favourable draw, but for that specific reason, one fraught with danger.
The fact these latter stages are now one-off games actually ensures there are two sides to almost every aspect for the French champions, all connected to the immense contrast between the two clubs.
By rights, after all, a super-club as wealthy as PSG should simply roll over a side as modest as Atalanta, especially over two legs. This should be where the fun ends for the Italians. Players like Papu Gomez and Josip Ilicic may have been good in Serie A… but this is Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, as well as probably the best squad left in the competition.
PSG are rightly confident, then, but many sources say there is also an underlying “trepidation” around the club. They know the Champions League is the trophy they absolutely have to win, but that means they know there is so much to lose with a tie like this.
Almost all of that is because of their traumatic recent history in this competition. It would be a huge embarrassment to lose to Atalanta, and a result that would seem very unlikely, but that would be entirely inkeeping with PSG’s last few seasons. Improbable humiliations? Try the collapses of 2017 and 2019, with all of that loaded on by their failure to get beyond the quarter-finals - and often the last 16 - in the modern era.
PSG aren’t the only club to suffer long nights of the soul in the Champions League. That’s what the gravitas of the competition can do, creating an aura that makes it feel like a Holy Grail, every elimination only making it feel more elusive.
They’re just the latest and most lavish club to suffer in it, the scale of their wealth and nature of the political project only accentuating the scale and nature of the embarrassments. The club who can buy anything else can’t get close to what they want most.
The external image has been of a bit of a laughing stock, with that ramped up this week by Thomas Meunier's revelations.
"When I was at Bruges, we'd celebrate birthdays by playing darts or pool in a bar, but here it's just outrageous," the Belgian said. "But that just reflects the club: hire a palace, hire a building, parties with hundreds of people. That's when you see that they're more than footballers; they're stars."
But not yet European champions.
It is why many at PSG just have that growing anxiety as the injuries mount up. It was first Kylian Mbappe, who may be able to play from the bench, but then Angel Di Maria and Marco Verratti.
There’s already that slight sense of things going wrong.
It is thereby easy to see how things might go on the night, especially if it’s any way tight going into the final stages.
Any “one-on-one” in PSG’s half will become freighted with consequence, but also so many traumatic memories.
That was what could be seen during their last humiliating elimination, against Manchester United in March 2019. It was as if a sudden panic came over them, and they began to look panicked every time Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side attacked.
A desperation ran through them. That was most visible in Marquinhos diving in apparent attempts to get Scott McTominay booked.
They didn’t have enough conviction in their approach or talent.
The memory of the 6-1 against Barcelona hung over everything. Now, the memory of both of those games, and so many eliminations, hangs over this.
But that is also why Tuchel has been so thorough regarding Atalanta. He wants absolutely nothing to surprise or faze his team. He realises the importance of psychology in this, and how proper preparation for any eventuality can mean players are more composed in any situation. This is a manager who has done a lot of reading on high performance under pressure. Tuchel famously prescribed that Henrikh Mkhitaryan read ‘The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance’ by W Timothy Gallwey.
In that regard, there is optimism that the comeback against Borussia Dortmund in the last 16 marked a psychological turning point for the team. There’s also the possibility that the uniqueness of this season’s latter stages might further help to expel trauma associated with different types of tie.
PSG are aware this is a huge opportunity for them. The problem, as ever, is that it’s also a huge opportunity for humiliation.