United gave PSG nightmares again

Published: October 20, 2020 at 11:19 p.m.
Updated: October 20, 2020 at 11:57 p.m.

PARIS. It was a game that had opened in the second half, which stood and weighed between the inherent brilliance of the home team and the visitors’ eternal refusal to slow down.

It could have ended anyway, so it ended like last time. Marcus Rashford again caused nightmares in Paris.

No one in Paris has really forgotten it, despite the fact that a lot of water has run in the Seine since then. The last time Manchester United were here, they sealed PSG’s fate as the luxury losing team in the Champions League. Marcus Rashford’s 3-1 penalty goal in the last seconds of the quarterfinals on March 6, 2019 still remains in the shoes of many Parisians.

But it was the old-time account, the one in which PSG never made it past the quarterfinals of the tournament, the one in which they constantly lost knockout matches in a more or less degrading way.

Last season, the most recent in fact, he was in the final against Bayern Munich, at the same time that Manchester United played the Europa League.

The Paris curfew applies from the start of the season at 9 p.m. (causality, rather than correlation, we must assume) and the 5,000 who previously had the opportunity to see PSG from the stands in this strange season debut had to stay home tonight. The club is estimated to cost SEK 70 million per major match. It is a Qatari headache as big as any other.

Staying home, or at least the bank, also landed a number of imaginary lead characters tonight. Paul Pogba and Harry Maguire with the guests, Marquinhos in the home team, while two cubs were placed on each end line. The funniest thing that happened in the first five minutes at Parc des Princes was when Abdou Diallo, welcome to the game, was scoring an own goal from the simplest clearing in European football in the last five years. Keylor Navas was in the notes. “Young people!”, He seemed to think, with his own new blonde hair.

Lindelöf kept Neymar in a bad mood

With just over twenty minutes into the game, Diallo Anthony Martial gave a semi-hard hug in his own area and took a penalty. Keylor Navas, who felt Bruno Fernande’s shot several times in the first half, took the Portuguese penalty, but left the finish line too early. Fernandes reloaded and hit a cold roller that fooled Navas. 0-1. And after the first minutes of pressure from PSG, it was United who went ahead.

On the other hand, injured United defender Axel Tuanzebe, on the day with Victor Nilsson Lindelöf on the defensive line, made a brilliant effort to keep Neymar and Kylian Mbappé in a bad mood.

Paris Saint-Germain did not reach a direct level in the first half as United did a good job stopping it. In any case, it was the two goalkeepers who stood out in the first 45. It was Manchester United who led when the first half went on goal at curfew and the torrential rain in Paris.

For this stranger united

The other had ten minutes when Anthony masterfully nodded on his first goal of the afternoon, however, on a corner from Neymar and therefore on the wrong goal. It was recognized, nothing unfair. PSG cajoled Kylian Mbappé with balls, United responded at every opportunity and Anthony Martial was not many inches away from heading a ball into the correct goal minutes later. Paris created little control over the match after the draw, the tracks of the August Champions League finalist could be felt here and there. But he is a bit on the level of good form always, at the level that fans and owners now, and really for a long time, can demand that PSG be.

In the last quarter of the Parc des Princes, the teams traded opportunities with each other at a real pace. PSG set up attacks, United snatched up counterattacks and could have finished anyway. So it ended like the last time. Substitute Paul Pogba delivered a ball to Marcus Rashford just outside the penalty area, Rashford spun, passed Danilo and landed the first goal at Keylor Nava’s right post.

It was not the same feeling as the last time Rashford opened the gates of hell for PSG, that fateful day in Paris in March 2019. But it was significant for this Paris Saint-Germain who started the season under the ice this year and ends. getting out of the water when the Champions League hit. the door. But more than anything, it was a condensed program statement for this strange Manchester United under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, a team eternally ravaged by a crisis that at regular intervals with no seemingly major problems is compared to the best. Tonight’s win was a real scalp and it wasn’t unfair at all. There are worse places to shine than the Parc des Princes. In Paris, problems keep piling up: curfews, screaming income holes, Marcus Rashford.

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Of: Johanna Frändén

Published: October 20, 2020 at 11:19 p.m.

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