Former Chelsea star Demba Ba has revealed that after Thibaut Courtois saved Lionel Messi's penalty in Paris Saint-Germain's clash against Real Madrid, the keeper has not changed his technique for saving penalties since his Chelsea days.
The world was watching as PSG hosted the Spanish giants in the Champions League round of 16 in Paris, with Kylian Mbappe in devastating form to eventually secure a 1-0 win with a goal deep in stoppage time.
The French star beat multiple defenders late in the game before slotting the ball through Courtois' legs to take an advantage into the second leg in Madrid.
While Courtois will be ruing the late goal, he had a huge part to play earlier in the game, saving a penalty low to his left from none other than Messi after Mbappe had been brought down in the area.
However, things could have been very different for the former Barcelona star, if he'd done the same research that Chelsea did way back in 2014.
Courtois was on loan from Stamford Bridge at Atletico Madrid in 2014 when the two sides met in the Champions League semi-final. And Demba Ba revealed on Twitter that the Belgian keeper's technique has seemingly not changed since.
"Just for info, an analysis done by the guys of @ChelseaFC in 2014 before the [semi-final] of #UCL showed us that Courtois always dives on the cross side of the strike.
"Apparently that hasn't changed!"
Courtois dived to his left to save Messi's penalty as the 34-year-old did indeed hit across his body with the left-footed strike.
While it wasn't enough to earn Real Madrid anything from the game, it's perhaps food for thought for the French champions in the second leg - or any other team in the next round should Real pull off a comeback.
