Former Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Marco Verratti spoke to MARCA and shared some of his thoughts on their rivalry with Real Madrid over the past few years.
“It’s a bit hard to explain. When you thought it was over, they would come back to life. A team that, even if they had the ball only 30% of the time, would still kill you. Other teams need the ball to win. Real didn’t. Madrid were very pragmatic. They would play 10 minutes well and score three goals while you, playing well for 80, scored one.
A team that knew how to suffer and knew that victory would come and would always come back,” said Verratti.
Verratti also praised his former teammate Kylian Mbappé, and wanted to dismiss the narrative that PSG won the Champions League because the French attacker left.
“It’s unfair to look at it that way. With Kylian we reached the semis and the final, but we didn’t win it. Then there’s Real Madrid who, with great players, won it many times. In short, I don’t think PSG would have conquered it because Kylian left. Mbappé has helped the club grow a lot. The year he left he scored around 50 goals, for example,” he added.
The midfielder also had praise for Mbappé’s current performances.
“He had to adapt but he scored many goals and won the Pichichi and the Golden Boot. And this year he is proving that he could do it even better. There is no one like him in the world right now,” he concluded.
