Barcelona’s streak in this season’s Champions League will likely come to a halt in the round of 16 thanks to another European embarrassment like the Blaugrana they lost 4-1 to Paris Saint-Germain at the Camp Nou. After playing 45 minutes, Barça fell apart completely in the second half, and Kylian Mbappé went wild and scored a hat-trick not only to win the first leg, but to close the tie for PSG.
FIRST HALF
The first half was a lot of fun from the start, with both teams looking to push and attack, and the opportunities came early and often. Pedri cleared the line with a shot from Mauro Icardi, and Antoine Griezmann required a good save from Keylor Navas at the end of a great team play.
Barça had a more direct approach than PSG and were not afraid to use fewer passes to build their attacks, and on a long ball in the direction of Frenkie De Jong el Blaugrana received a penalty thanks to a silly challenge from Layvin Kurzawa. Lionel Messi stepped onto the pitch with confidence and buried his kick to give Barça an advantage.
Unfortunately the advantage did not last long thanks to a piece of individual brilliance from Mbappé, who received a pass from Marco Verratti inside the area, showed great ability to dribble Gerard Piqué and Clément Lenglet and fired a rocket to the ceiling of the net to do so -1.
At halftime, an intense and highly entertaining soccer match went straight ahead, with more fun promised for the second half.
SECOND HALF
The second part revolved around Mbappé. Barça simply had no answer for the Frenchman, who kept beating Sergiño Dest on the wing again and again and forcing Barça to make last minute tickets, and the Blaugrana the defense seemed increasingly vulnerable as time went on.
The home team could no longer attack and the pressure continued to grow until Paris finally went ahead: a long ball found Alessandro Florenzi only inside the area and after his center was poorly cleared by Piqué, Mbappé was the first in the ball and scored his second of the game. Just five minutes later, Moise Kean scored a free header and PSG had a two-goal lead.
Barça tried to make substitutions to be more offensive but that only made it more open to PSG’s counterattacks, and it was a devastating counterattack that sealed the deal after an assist from Julian Draxler and Mbappé in the third of the night.
Barcelona: Ter Stegen, Dest (Mingueza 71 ‘), Piqué (Pedri 79’), Lenglet, Alba; De Jong, Busquets (Pjanic 79 ‘), Pedri (Trincão 79’); Dembélé, Messi, Griezmann (Braithwaite 85 ‘)
Aim: Messi (28 ‘pen.)
PSG: Navas; Florenzi (Kehrer 89 ‘), Marquinhos, Kimpembe, Kurzawa; Gueye (Herrera 46 ‘), Paredes, Verratti; Kean (Danilo 85 ‘), Icardi, Mbappé
Goals: Mbappé (32 ‘, 65’, 85 ‘), Kean (70’)
