Mbappé, the main reason to believe in it
Transparent in the first leg, the departing star is at the center of the debates. Is the Frenchman still concerned by the Parisian project, he who will leave Ligue 1, undoubtedly for Real Madrid next summer? “He annoyed the fans in the first leg with almost each of his 44 balls touched for zero shots on target in three attempts”points out Le Parisien, “A pitiful performance, as empty as the one at Newcastle (4-1). Ah, the lantern! But what was more or less acceptable in the group stage of the Champions League becomes unforgivable in their eyes during the quarter-finals.
Since the announcement of his departure, the French football star has only played two full matches: one in Ligue 1 against Montpellier and the other last Wednesday against Barça in C1. Anxious to prepare for the future, Enrique placed him on the bench more often than not and relations between the two men would have cooled considerably.
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But if his departure already seems confirmed, Mbappé will not want to leave PSG after yet another failure in the Champions League. “This is the time for the great players and I'm not going to hide”, he declared before the first leg. And if he missed this first meeting, Mbappé can still come out of his shell to allow Parisian fans to continue to hope.
At his level, the player from Bondy can turn around a match almost single-handedly. “It also remains, magic of its magic, their main reason to believe in it”points out Le Parisien.
“A champion of his stature cannot miss such an important meeting twice in a row in a sport where the big matches belong to the big players”adds the major daily newspaper of Île-de-France, which therefore hopes that Mbappé lights up this Champions League evening.
Tactical adjustments
If Mbappé will undoubtedly have to put out a top-flight performance to force qualification for the semi-final, Luis Enrique will also review his copy. If he tried to cover his tracks at the press conference, not wanting to say too much about his starting eleven, the Spaniard should make some changes. The nugget Warren Zaire-Emery should make his return to the starting lineup, undoubtedly at the expense of Lee.
In attack, Barcola is able to play. After his impactful rise to the game last Wednesday, the young Frenchman should supplant the ghostly Asensio, who did not weigh against the Catalan defense at the Parc des Princes.
The Parisian coach, who also brings back Hakimi in a defense which suffered greatly in the first leg, remains very optimistic about his team's chances of qualifying: “We are convinced that we will turn the situation around.” Enrique meticulously analyzed the first leg and refined his tactics over many days, according to the French press.
The Parisians also had more time to prepare for this decisive match. The Ligue 1 match scheduled for this weekend, against Lorient, has in fact been moved to April 24.
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”It’s a 70-30, you have to be lucid”
But if the French press is looking for reasons to believe it, not everyone is so positive for the Parisian club: “PSG does not start in a favorable position. It's a 70-30, you have to be lucid”, points out RMC Sport columnist Daniel Riolo.
Above all, he hopes that Luis Enrique – whom he once again sharply criticized after the first leg – will not make new tactical experiments as was the case last Wednesday.
”PSG should have eliminated Barça. It's not completely dead. But you lose in the first leg with three goals and you still play against Barça. We are talking about a really good team, which risks fielding a Gündogan-De Jong-Pedri midfielder, better than that of PSG”, continues Riolo who also points out the Parisians' lack of reference outside in C1. “Since 2013, away from home, there are barely a handful of matches that anyone remembers. The signals are all red. We need to see something we haven’t seen in Paris for a very long time.”he concludes.
