Sumptuous, scorching and slick were the finishes that enabled Paris Saint-Germain to come from behind on Wednesday night to take a wholesome advantage into the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final clash against Aston Villa.
Fresh and vibrant after clinching a fourth consecutive Ligue 1 crown last Saturday, PSG tore into the Premier League visitors to the Parc des Princes.
Vitinha signalled his intent five minutes into the encounter with a long-range shot that was safely gathered by the Villa goalkeeper Emi Martinez.
The Argentine – whistled and jeered throughout by the locals for his anti-French comments after the 2022 World Cup – was also equal to another effort from distance from skipper Achraf Hakimi.
Suffocating under the intensity of the PSG pressing and passing game, Villa offered little threat.
Superior in speed and execution, the hosts oozed menace. Vitinha slashed a shot over the bar mid way through the half and Nuno Mendes romped up from defence to have a pop at goal.
Loss
But another of his forward ventures after 35 minutes led to disaster.
Villa skipper John McGinn snaffled the ball off him on the right wing and barrelled towards the PSG goal. The Scot's cross-field pass sent the ball to Marcus Rashford who prodded it deftly onto Youri Tielemans. He rolled it across the PSG penalty area and Morgan Rogers, unattended, swept home.
PSG responded with aplomb to the lackadaisical lapse.
Mendes started his redemption four minutes later, passing the ball over to the left wing for Desiré Doué.
The teenager, who scored the winner to clinch the title against Angers, sauntered across the penalty area to the right and so nonchalant was the movement of his right leg that Martinez stood rooted to the ground as the ball curled around him and into the top left hand corner of his goal for the equaliser.
Control
PSG seized control four minutes after the restart.
A Villa attack was broken down on the PSG right. The ball was rapidly shuffled between defenders and over to Fabian Ruiz in midfield. The Spaniard clipped it on to Khvicha Kvaratskhelia on the left wing.
He surged forward, bedazzled Villa defender Axel Disasi and blasted the ball past Martinez at his near post.
In the wake of such savage beauty, the third goal seemed forever imminent. But The Villa – as they are nicknamed – held strong. And a 2-1 defeat seemed an achievement.
In stoppage-time though, Mendes completed his rehabilitation.
Latching onto Ousmane Dembélé's defence-splitting pass on the left, Mendes, shaping to shoot with his left foot, foxed Ezri Konsa and Martinez to leave them sprawling on the turf. He moved the ball onto his right foot and stabbed it into the waiting net for a 3-1 cushion.
"The match had a bit of everything," said PSG boss Luis Enrique.
"We controlled it which was our main target. Creating chances against a team like Villa is always hard. They scored with their first real chance so that worried us but my players showed again that they are ready to compete. The goal in the last minute was the icing on the cake."
The second leg takes place at Villa Park in Birmingham, central England on 15 April.
Despite the victory, Enrique said he would warn his players to take heed from Tuesday night's results in the competition when the presumed favourites Real Madrid and Bayern Munich lost to Arsenal and Inter Milan respectively.
"From what we have seen, I think we can all agree that the concept of favourites does not make much sense in this tournament," said Enrique.
"It does not matter what we have done tonight, our target is to win the next game," he added.
"We do not know how to play in any other way. It will be hard to win in Birmingham but that is what we will try to do."
