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It had been disconcertingly quiet around the Paris Saint-Germain squad as they made their way through the corridors of the Parc des Princes, bar one voice that was notably loud.
t was of, course, Kylian Mbappe, who made a point of speaking to media following the 1-0 defeat to Bayern Munich. He was asked who was favourite for the second leg of their Champions League last-16 tie – and evidently didn’t need to be asked twice.
“PSG, as always.”
The only reason that doesn’t sound ridiculous after a team performance as bad as that from PSG was because of Mbappe himself. Bayern manager Julian Nagelsmann put it simply but put it best.
“You can see what happens when Mbappe comes on.”
That was saying something. It wasn’t quite that PSG were transformed since so many issues within the team remained. It was more that Mbappe transformed the entire nature of the match. He just had that gravitational effect.
Having previously and belatedly been pushing forward in the realisation that PSG were easier to get at, Bayern suddenly sat back. They knew they just couldn’t risk the space in behind. So it proved.
Mbappe had two goals ruled out for offside, with one of them by the thinnest of margins, while also forcing a brilliant save by Yann Sommer. It symbolised how close he was making a game that had been there for Bayern Munich to just shut down. They could have been 2-0 or 3-0 up before Mbappe started revving up.
“He can change any match by himself,” Nagelsmann added. “PSG woke up when he was subbed on.”
That effect was all the more remarkable, given that it was Mbappe when he was half-fit. It is why there is renewed doubt about how this tie will go, given he is likely to be back to full fitness by the return in Munich.
And it does already feel like a Mbappe on full fitness is now on another level. It is as if the World Cup marked another dividing line in his career in that sense as if the way he just seized the final saw him go to the next stage.
There’s an obvious thing to say at this point. It’s difficult to think of any player who has had such individual effect on a Champions League team … other than Lionel Messi. That’s what we’re talking about with Mbappe. We’re not quite talking about the same Messi, though.
The Argentine was well below his best, although that is perhaps inevitable for a number of reasons.
There is first of all the fact he has just been through a lifetime high that meant and demanded everything. There will, of course, be a drop-off. There’s then the reality that even a PSG as expensively assembled as this represent a drop-off from Messi’s Argentina.
While the World Cup winners were so willing to run and work, and especially willing to run and work for Messi, that just isn’t the case with PSG.
That should provoke another concern. For all the criticism of Mauricio Pochettino, and the argument that he didn’t get enough out of the three stars, Christophe Galtier has seen the level of the rest of the squad really drop off. There isn’t the same structure or organisation about them. There isn’t the baseline Pochettino had.
It is why they have become even more dependent on Mbappe. Everything now rests on him.
“They’re better with Mbappé than without him,” said Nagelsmann, when of course it didn’t need to be said. “His next line was maybe more interesting, though. “In the second leg, we’ll have good ideas to counter him and we can hurt them in attack.”
Bayern are going to have to be a lot more ready than they were for the last 20 minutes of the first leg.
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