It took three minutes of the second half for Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, perhaps the most watchable footballer in Europe right now, to confirm the way this game was going.
Unai Emery had sent on Axel Disasi for Matty Cash at the break, with the score 1-1 and PSG hugely dominant on every metric. Cash was effectively doomed in this game from the moment he was booked pulling Kvaratskhelia back, just trying to stop the pain on Aston Villa’s right side, and already facing a case of terminal neck-crick from staring down at those shuffling feet. That was Cash’s fourth foul with just 17 minutes gone. Tick tock.
So Disasi was sent on, an act of pure pragmatism from Emery, who was out pacing his touchline at the start of the half, looking more than ever like a well-meaning vampire disguised as a bank manager, and still visibly concerned by the patterns on that flank.
Disasi hadn’t even touched the ball by the time Emery’s gambit began to fail. Kvaratskhelia took the ball wide on the left, a promising position but not an obviously open one. He scurried forward as Disasi backed off, his first contribution to lose his balance as Kvaratskhelia produced the most outrageously lovely piece of skill, rolling his right foot over the ball, not breaking stride, revolving his hips to go left of Disasi, who fell backwards and spun around just in time to see the next part.
After that feather-light right foot: the hammer with the left, a shot of startling power and precision into the near top corner to set PSG on their way to an entirely deserved 3-1 victory.
It is tempting to talk endlessly about Kvaratskhelia at moments like these. He has such a rare range of skill and physical gifts in an increasingly processed modern game. Even the optics are old school, the peculiar appeal of the ambling left-footer, the socks that aren’t even rolled down, just rakishly lowered.
Plus of course that distinctive way of moving. With Kvaratskhelia this is something to do with his relationship with the ground, an ability to stop suddenly, to twist and turn in his own pocket of gravity.
It can seem like an anachronism that modern footballers are still called “players”. Play suggests joy, invention, something freeform. Nobody’s playing here. These are work-units, human structure pegs, positional meat avatars.
But Kvaratskhelia does play. He makes up moments, creates his own patterns on the ball. The strength of this PSG team is that, as with Désiré Doué on the other flank, he is given licence to do this within one of the most heavily structured, hard pressing units of the last decade.
It is a rare feat of management from Luis Enrique, and above all a show of confidence in the value of extreme attacking talent. Otherwise, this was a game of textural contrasts.
Modern PSG teams have been built around possession. This one is the same, so much so that for long periods at the Parc des Princes someone coming to football for the first time might have wondered why only one team was taking part. By half-time, John McGinn had completed six passes to Vitinha’s 65. Both play in central midfield. The fact the score was still 1-1 is testament to how well Villa had resisted.
At times in the first half this felt like a meeting of McGinns and Doués, contrasting physical outlines, styles, ways of playing. It was a good night for McGinn, once of St Mirren and now captaining Villa on this elite stage surrounded by elegantly gliding footballers of the modern template, snake-hipped super athletes, frictionless academy prototypes.
McGinn has never been the standard physical type, instead rolling around midfield like a solid oak rustic kitchen unit that has somehow grown legs and learned to play football.
Ten minutes in he was already sweating hard, his neck bright pink. He still hadn’t touched the ball. It is a rare kind of sporting pain to chase constantly, to always see the ball as your enemy, never your friend.
But McGinn is also a really smart and skilful footballer, and he made Villa’s opening goal with a wonderfully forceful interception, then a swift diagonal pass that allowed Youri Tielemans to tee up Morgan Rogers.
PSG only took four minutes to equalise. Fittingly it came from the teenager Doué, also brilliant, also free in his movements, with a wonderful turn and shot.
There was no backlift here, just astonishing foot speed, whipping through the ball with such force he whirled himself into an aerial pirouette, both feet off the ground as the ball zinged into the top corner. Nuno Mendes scored another fine goal at the death to confirm the sense of a PSG team moving towards its own note of destiny in May.
Six months really is a long time in football. The switch to acting like a team rather than a celebrity waxwork museum has been effected with the help of a ruthless, deep-pocketed reckoning up of contracts. Emery must have looked at this team and slightly scratched his head, recalling his own spell here, back when PSG was basically a Freddie Mercury house party with football attached. Oh, now you’re going to run.
The hiring, and more to the point, the empowering of a soulful, smart, charismatic manager has been key to all this. It will take a remarkable turnaround, not just in the scoreline, but the entire gravity of this tie to stop that progress.
