Barcelona have suffered their first defeat of the season in all competitions thanks to a heartbreaking 2-1 loss to European champions Paris Saint-Germain in Matchday 2 of the League Phase of this season’s Champions League at the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium on Wednesday night. After a sensational start that gave them the lead after 20 brilliant minutes of football, Barça slowly but surely fell victim to Luis Enrique’s side who took complete control, dominated the second half, and scored a 90th minute winner
to claim all three points in the Catalan capital in what was a pretty big reality check for Hansi Flick and his troops.
FIRST HALF
The opening 25 minutes belonged to the home team as Barça took control of the ball and moved it well between the lines to create spaces, and they were brilliant with their pressing to force PSG into mistakes.
Lamine Yamal was sensational to start the game and was involved in every good Barça move, and his outrageous trivela pass to Ferran Torres almost resulted in a goal as Ferran dribbled past the goalkeeper and had a certain goal denied by a miraculous clearance from Illia Zabarnyi.
Barça’s press caused serious trouble for the visitors who lost the ball multiple times early on, and one of those mistakes led to the opening goal: Yamal jumped to steal a bad pass from Vitinha inside PSG’s own half and started a counter-attack, which ended with a glorious assist by Marcus Rashford and a smart finish by Ferran to put Barça ahead.
The final 20 minutes belonged to PSG: the visitors stopped making mistakes in their buildup and did a better job dealing with Barça’s press, while their own pressing scheme started to force errors by the Blaugrana, who lost a bit of composure and started to concede spaces and chances to PSG.
Nuno Mendes became a real attacking threat for Paris, and it was his run with the ball after an ill-timed press by Jules Kounde that broke down the entire Barça defense and allowed Senny Mayulu to find himself all alone with Wojciech Szczesny and score the equalizer.
PSG had a huge chance to take the lead before the break when Bradley Barcola beat Gerard Martín for pace and ran all the way into the box, but his shot went over the crossbar. The halftime whistle came to end a very intense and competitive opening frame with one period of dominance and one goal for each team, and the game was wide open heading into the second half.
SECOND HALF
PSG picked it up right where they left off the start the second half, easily passing the ball through Barça’s high press and finding plenty of space in behind the Blaugrana defense. Szczesny made a strong save to deny Barcola, Eric Garcia made at least two hugely important interventions inside the box, and the visitors remained the better side as we reached the hour mark.
Barça finally responded and showed some signs of life, and began to offer an attacking threat for the first time in the second half. Dani Olmo had the Catalans’ best chance when a cross from Ferran was deflected perfectly onto his path, but Achraf Hakimi made a tremendous block to stop the ball from crossing the line.
That turned out to be Barça’s only real chance of the half, as PSG completely dominated the final 20 minutes against a Barça side that struggled to keep the ball and made poor mistakes against the French side’s press, and in the 90th minute came the heartbreak: Alejandro Balde forgot to track the run of Hakimi and the right-back had all the time and space to pick out Gonçalo Ramos, who came off the bench to fire the ball into the bottom corner and complete the PSG comeback.
Barça couldn’t get the ball back to try and push for a late equalizer, and PSG simply ran out the clock until the final whistle came to give them all three points on the night.
This was a painful but deserved defeat as Barça dominated the first 25 minutes but were outclassed in every way for the rest of the game, and even a weakened PSG side did whatever they wanted in the second half. It’s a tough wake-up call for Hansi Flick and his team, who now know there’s still a lot to do to get to PSG’s level, even a PSG team missing four of their best players.
This is a tough one.
Barcelona: Szczesny; Kounde, Eric (Christensen 86’), Cubarsí, Martín (Balde 72’); De Jong, Pedri (Bernal 79’); Yamal, Olmo (Casadó 72’), Rashford (Lewandowski 72’); Ferran
Goal: Ferran (20’)
PSG: Chevalier; Hakimi, Zabarnyi, Pacho, Mendes; Zaïre-Emery, Vitinha, Fabián (Ramos 72’); Mbaye (Hernández 65’), Mayulu (Lee 80’), Barcola (Ndjantou 80’)
Goals: Mayulu (38’), Ramos (90’)
