“Many would like to see us dead,” Luis Enrique had announced, theatrically if not entirely incorrectly, after the narrowest squeak through the Champions League group stages in the autumn.
Midway through this last-16 tie Paris Saint-Germain remain not just alive but favourites to register their first knockout victory in three years. They were driven on at the Parc des Princes by the edge of Kylian Mbappé and the energy of a reconfigured team that is, for all its anti-galactico stylings, geared ever more to feeding the ball towards its incumbent Sun King.
Mbappé and Bradley Barcola scored the goals to make it 2-0 at the end of an agreeably open first leg, but this was still an ordeal for the French champions as Real Sociedad came to Paris ready to play.
“Madre mía, what suffering! What a great team! What a way to compete! I don’t even want to think about the second leg,” was Luis Enrique’s post‑match verdict on opponents who pressed without fear but were picked off in a limb-weary second half by the high-craft of the Paris attack.
For the opening 45 minutes this was a game of beguiling contrasts. La Real set their game-line recklessly high. Paris reeled off a series of surgical breaks. On the one hand an apparently fearless underdog in arguably the biggest game in its club history; on the other the high‑speed brilliance of Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé, undercut as ever by the usual high-wire Parisian neuroses at this stage of the competition.
La Real are one of those clubs people love to love, a wholesome collectivist construct, built out of ideas such as community, stability and participation. Here they lined up with nine Spanish nationals, four of those Basques, one an assumed Frenchman from Brittany, the brilliantly named Robin Le Normand, who sounds like a fabled warrior‑hero of the Battle of Hastings.
For Paris Mbappé was back, as he was always going to be, recovered from a bruised ankle. And as ever Mbappé, or at least his extended unresolved farewell, remains the key story around here.
Recent reports suggest Mbappé’s entourage, or at least certain members of his entourage – an entourage must be allowed to have many shades and nuances– are unconvinced by the latest mind-bogglingly vast cash offer laid at his door by Real Madrid, which is, his entourage feels, some way short of its own preferred mind‑bogglingly vast cash offer. This has long since become a rather sorry tale of insatiable greed and the commodification of human talent. Mbappé is 25 now. It really is time to stretch out and find his own extraordinary limits.
At the Parc it took 35 seconds for Real Sociedad to steal the ball high up the pitch, prelude to André Silva curling their first shot of the game just wide. Those early moments had the feeling of a Western saloon bar brawl deep in the Paris half, as the visitors pressed in packs, in the process leaving a reckless amount of space behind.
Mbappé really should have scored with five minutes gone after a straight thrust through the middle, out there gliding away into his own private patch of green and shooting too close to Alex Remiro.
Takefusa Kubo and Mikel Merino combined to set up André Silva for a header that looped just past the post. Kubo was a threat throughout the half, a lovely, easy, mischievous dribbler, and another footballer who appears to have decided this high‑tension theatre of pain is actually, in the end, a bit of a lark. Are you really allowed to enjoy playing these games?
Paris began to assert their more orderly possession game. Le Normand was booked for hacking down Dembélé as he glided past two white shirts towards the edge of the penalty area. And half-time arrived with the game still somehow goalless.
Imanol Alguacil’s team stuck to the pattern after the break. Press high. Leave three against three at the back. Hope Mbappé and Dembélé aren’t actually as deadly as they look in the clips. Still the suspicion began to grow that La Real really did have to make all this energy pay given the threat at the other end.
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And so it came to pass as Paris took the lead from a corner with 57 minutes gone. Dembélé took it, Marquinhos flicked it on and Mbappé hooked the ball in expertly at the back post, too quick and too agile for the white-shirted cover.
Paris were humming now, Vitinha spinning into space and finding clever passing angles. Mbappé grazed the bar with a shot from 25 yards. And on 70 minutes it was 2-0. The goal was made by a swift break from left to right, and scored by Barcola, who took the ball on the touchline, veered inside, found the space opening up and tucked the ball under Remiro.
A packed Reale Arena in two weeks’ time could present another twist. But Paris hold the edge in this tie in every sense.
