UEFA Champions League
Neymar flops once again on disappointing Champions League night for PSG, but team still qualify
What happens when a team which relies on moments fails to capitalise on said moments?
From a position of strength in the second half, 1-0 up and in the driving seat in their Champions League group, PSG contrived to surrender their advantage and, by extension, the group.
From Mauricio Pochettino’s perspective, it largely hinged on one moment.
With 17 minutes remaining and the game locked level, Neymar collected the ball on the edge of the area. Slaloming his way through the Man City defence, he had the goal at his mercy.
His finish, however, was dragged wide of the post.
Less than two minutes later, City grabbed their winner.
The episode characterised Neymar’s season in the French capital. Whereas many expected him to thrive after the arrival of former Barcelona teammate Lionel Messi, he has cut a slightly awkward figure. Most damning is that a team which requires decisiveness in the final third is currently getting the opposite from the Brazilian.
PSG’s game plan on the evening mirrored their approach to the fixture at the Parc des Princes in September. Pochettino packed his midfield with athleticism – Ander Herrera replaced Marco Verratti in the starting lineup – before surrendering possession and tasking his star-studded attacking trio to go and win the match.
It was all going to plan for an hour. City created the majority of the goalscoring opportunities, but their pressure wasn’t incessant and there were periods in which PSG were able to take the sting out of the game without much resistance from Guardiola’s side.
However, when City responded through Sterling on the hour mark PSG didn’t really lose their composure. It was about as much as Pochettino could ask from his defensive unit given the instructions he had handed them pre-match, but they were let down by Neymar’s profligacy in that moment 17 minutes from time.
Perhaps he could be forgiven if this was merely an off-night, but it marked the fourth Champions League game this term that Neymar has provided neither an assist or a goal. In a group including Club Brugge and an RB Leipzig side struggling for form, it makes for dismal reading.
His domestic form barely offers a note of encouragement either. Three goals and as many assists in nine starts doesn’t cut it in a dominant PSG side. Many will underline the fact the Parisiens have flattered to deceive in Ligue 1 this term, but Neymar’s contributions – or lack of – is part of that.
When compared to Kylian Mbappe’s numbers, you would be forgiven for believing Neymar was a bit-part squad member. The Frenchman has registered 12 assists this season, with eight goals to boot in all competitions. He is averaging a goal involvement roughly every 59 minutes on the pitch.
There’s only one football on the pitch, you might say, which renders it largely impossible for each of PSG’s front three to post extraordinary numbers. But it’s been Mbappe’s decisiveness which has marked him out. This is also a player who believed he was leaving PSG with just a week left in the transfer window last summer.
Of course, there could be mitigating circumstances. Neymar missed the opening three games of the season through injury, and his performances hint at a player carrying either mental or physical baggage.
But at present, it’s difficult to defend Neymar’s contributions. In fact, it’s difficult to justify his place in the team at all.
-90min
Spain’s LaLiga will be represented by at least five teams in the Champions League next season after Italy’s Lazio were eliminated from the Europa League on Thursday while Athletic Bilbao progressed to the semi-finals.
LaLiga earned the second of two European Performance Spots handed out by UEFA, which go to associations “with the best collective performance by their clubs” in UEFA competitions.
England’s Premier League was the first to secure an extra berth in Europe’s top competition, on top of the four granted to the top four teams in the domestic table.
Villarreal are fifth in the LaLiga standings, with 51 points from 30 matches.
They are three points ahead of sixth-placed Real Betis and eight in front of Celta Vigo and Mallorca, with all three clubs having played one more game than Villarreal.
-Reuters
Real Madrid’s record-breaking manager Carlo Ancelotti had no complaints after his side’s Champions League reign was ended in emphatic fashion by Arsenal in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Italian Ancelotti won a record-extending fifth Champions League trophy last season as Real beat Borussia Dortmund at Wembley, but his side went down 2-1 at home to Arsenal for a crushing 5-1 aggregate defeat.
“There are two sides to football, the happy part that has happened to us many times and the sad part we have to handle in the same way. It has happened to us fewer times than to other teams, but we have to manage it because it allows us to be better in the next games.”
When Real keeper Thibaut Courtois saved Bukayo Saka’s early penalty and minutes later Real were awarded a spot kick for a push by Declan Rice on Kylian Mbappe, it seemed that the great escape might still be a possibility.
But Real’s penalty was overturned after a lengthy VAR check, and in truth, they never looked remotely threatening as their bid for a 16th European Cup crown ended in feeble fashion.
“To change the dynamic, we needed something positive, like the penalty he whistled and then took off. We needed something to have more confidence, but we were not able to change the dynamic of the first leg,” Ancelotti said.
Despite the defeat, Ancelotti said Real’s season still has plenty of possibilities, not least trying to bridge a four-point gap to La Liga leaders Barcelona.
“Now we are in the fight for La Liga. We have a disadvantage, but we have the Barcelona game, we have the Copa del Rey final, the Club World Cup, and we have to manage this part, which is another part of football that we are not used to,” he said.
“It’s time to hold our heads high and learn from our mistakes. It’s sad today, but I have absolutely no worries about how my players will respond. We’ll fight on, we’ll learn from the experience, and we’ll try to be better for the next match.”
-Reuters
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Arsenal snuffed out any chance of a famous Real Madrid comeback to reach the Champions League semi-finals after a 2-1 victory in the Bernabeu Stadium completed a 5-1 aggregate win on Wednesday.
Holders and 15-time winners Real never looked like clawing back a 3-0 deficit from last week’s quarter-final first leg, and when Bukayo Saka scored for the visitors in the 65th minute, their fate was effectively sealed.
Vinicius Junior seized on a rare defensive slip a couple of minutes later to rouse the home crowd, but it proved too little too late as Carlo Ancelotti’s side exited feebly.
Arsenal’s superiority over the two legs was underlined in stoppage time as Gabriel Martinelli burst through to score.
They will face Paris St Germain in their first Champions League semi-final since 2009.
“I think it’s such a special night for this club, it’s a historic night for this club,” said Arsenal’s Declan Rice, whose two sublime free kicks put his side in control last week.
“There was a lot of talk coming in about them coming back from the dead, they’ve done it so many times before. But we had so much belief and confidence from that first leg that we had enough to come here and win the game.”
A cacophony of noise greeted kickoff with the home fans fuelled by the hope of witnessing what would have been one of the greatest Champions League comebacks.
But Real’s knack of extricating themselves from difficult positions in a competition they won six times in the previous 11 seasons deserted them as they were comprehensively outplayed.
“Did we fall short of what we wanted in pure football terms? Perhaps,” Real captain Lucas Vazquez said. “They really are terrifically organised defensively.”
PENALTY MISS
Real needed a storming start, and Mbappe had the ball in the Arsenal net in the opening minutes but was offside when chesting in a Vinicius cross.
Arsenal were in no mood to simply sit and protect their lead, though, and Saka forced a great save from Courtois. They were handed the chance to kill off the tie when Raul Asencio needlessly hauled down Mikel Merino from a corner, and referee Francois Letexier eventually awarded a penalty after checking a pitch-side VAR monitor.
Saka opted for a Panenka-style chipped penalty, and Courtois clawed away the ball.
It looked like a potentially pivotal moment, and when Letexier pointed to the penalty spot at the other end after Kylian Mbappe tumbled under minimal contact from Rice, Arsenal’s night looked like taking a turn for the worse.
After five painstaking minutes, however, Letexier was again invited by VAR to view the monitor and to a chorus of whistles from the home fans, overturned his original decision.
That scare aside, Arsenal coped easily with Real Madrid’s famed frontline who were given little to work with.
Arsenal keeper David Raya was not required to make a save before halftime as Real’s predilection for hopeful crosses into the area proved easy pickings for the visiting defence.
Real’s Mbappe barely had a sniff of a chance as Arsenal showed great control and Saka made up for his first-half miss with a clinical finish after being sent clear by Merino.
William Saliba gifted Real a lifeline when he was caught in possession on the edge of his area, allowing Vinicius to score, but there was never any sense of panic in the visiting ranks.
Martinelli put the icing on the cake in added time, again from a Merino assist, to send Arsenal’s fans into raptures.
-Reuters
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