Opinion: Is Paris Saint-Germain ready for Champions League glory yet?
Liverpool 3-2 PSG
Paris Saint-Germain had a familiar experience in their opening Champions League fixture when they lost 3-2 to Liverpool on Tuesday. Yet again, the formidable PSG side, led by the impressive trio of Neymar, Mbappe and Cavani, were defeated in a big match by a big team on the European stage.
The club has spent over $1 billion on players only, since the 2011 takeover by the Qatar Investment Authority, according to a recent CNBC report. But, the results have remained the same. They just don't seem to get things right against the big European teams.
In every single one of their campaigns, they have never made it past the quarter-finals, and in the last two seasons, couldn't make it past the round of 16 itself.
The recent 3-2 defeat at Anfield to Liverpool, makes it 3 consecutive losses in 3 UCL games played in 2018. Well, they say failure is important for success, but it seems PSG only fail and never learn.
What do the stats say?
Having lost crucial games against the likes of Real Madrid in 2017-18, Barcelona in 2014-15 and again in 2016-17, Manchester City in 2015-16, the only question that comes to mind is: are PSG still not ready to join the European elites?
If we take a look at the performance of clubs from the European top 5 leagues, over last 10 years in the UCL, we find that clubs who have won their domestic title at least once in the same period, have also managed to win the Champions League title in that period: all domestic champions except PSG and Juventus.
One of most memorable of the fixtures that PSG lost was of the epic Round of 16 match between PSG and Barcelona. The helpless PSG defense let in 6 goals, including 2 goals in 3 minutes from the then Barcelona star Neymar.
When it comes to facing off against the biggest teams in Europe, the stats suggest PSG have always found it difficult to repeat their Ligue 1 exploits in the UCL. The recent loss against the Reds has added another big loss to the unwanted list of games lost at this competition.
Is PSG not a cohesive unit?
After the match, the social media was full of opinions about why the Parisians lost. But the most glaring weakness that many news articles pointed out was that PSG didn't play like a team at all.
Neymar and Mbappe didn't track back enough, and at times their individualistic approach hurt the team. Mbappe was clearly at fault for the decisive goal from Firmino in the injury time.
What to expect from PSG in the future
With all being said, we should remember that we are talking about PSG here. On paper at least, they have one of the strongest squads out there. There is an absolute glut of individual talent in the team and thus it becomes a daunting task for the manager Thomas Tuchel to transform this team of scattered individual talents into an unbeatable force.
This is just the start of the season and though they lost this match, it was a close one, which could've easily ended in a draw. So there is obvious scope of improvement right there. But as we have seen over the years, PSG don't learnt much from their mistakes, but can they turn things around this time?
It will all depend on building up the espirit de corps, and for that, Tuchel will have to use all of his experience as a manager, or else PSG are all set for another disappointing display on the European stage again.