PSG eliminated Liverpool from the Champions League on Tuesday with a performance and outcome that astounded the entire football world.
Luis Enrique’s team won 1-0 at Anfield thanks to a strike from Ousmane Dembele, nullifying the Reds’ fortunate lead from six days earlier in Paris.
Few would contest that the team that performed better throughout the two games advanced to play Aston Villa or Club Brugge in the quarterfinals, as PSG won on penalties thanks to Gianluigi Donnarumma’s heroics.
However, Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi will have been watching through their fingers during that performance.
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With Neymar, the most costly player in the history of the sport. These three were supposed to lead PSG to Champions League success, together.
Rather, they were in charge of a string of spectacular collapses as Les Parisiens failed in a wide range of ways.
The squad’s lack of cohesion was the most striking aspect for PSG throughout the Messi and Mbappe period. There was a three-man attack with no additional duties, and at times it seemed the front three played differently from the rest of the team.
The PSG of the past were driven by individualism, but Luis Enrique has eliminated that trait from the team and replaced it with a squad more akin to the outstanding Barcelona team he created ten years ago.
Although it’s not quite tiki-taka, it’s the closest a team in the modern era can go to it.
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