Paris Saint-Germain send message to Champions League with show of unity in destruction of Bayern Munich
PSG 3 Bayern Munich 0: French side put week of controversy behind them but it is Kylian Mbappe - rather than the feuding Neymar or Edinson Cavani - who grabs limelight
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From a soap opera to a white-wash. Paris Saint-Germain so impressively dismissed a week of controversy and dressing-room politics by utterly dismissing Bayern Munich 3-0.
It wasn’t just another of the big wins they have for so long craved over one of the Champions League’s leading super-clubs, but also a gloriously collective display, and a statement for the Champions League far greater than any put out by the club about tensions among their stars.
It was also an indictment of Bayern that - by half-time - this game wasn’t about whether they could get back into the game, but whether grown men were happy playing together. A character study, rather than a contest.
That’s how bad Carlo Ancelotti’s side were, that’s how irresistible PSG were. There was still an individual stand-out even if this was a night that was supposed to be about the collective - and it wasn’t Neymar.
After a week of noise about the Brazilian’s relationship with Edinson Cavani, the supreme Kylian Mbappe just cut through all of that - and the Bayern defence - with the purest type of talent and ability. He may not have scored, but he was the player most responsible for his two attacking teammates scoring, after Dani Alves hit the first.
He was simply joyous to watch.
Neymar didn’t quite look happy in that blistering opening minute, but did look focused - as if he was conspicuously trying to prove something. He proved he could move through a painfully slow Bayern defence with ease, anyway, just cutting through them. Whether he was actually looking for Dani Alves is open to doubt, but there was doubt about the full-back’s finish. He simply powered it past Manuel Neuer’s teenage stand-in Sven Ulreich.
The pace was set, the game was set, and the stage for something else was set.
Although Bayern had a spell where they put Paris Saint-Germain’s goal under some pressure, Alphonse Areola touching away one Javi Martinez long shot, it was nothing like the tension at the other end on the many occasions the French side broke.
Some of that tension, of course, also involved the choices. There was one vignette on 27 minutes that is likely to be reviewed over and over again this season, and afforded the type of Zapruder treatment that the celebrations will. At that moment, it was the sensational Mbappe surging forward with the ball with Cavani to his left and Neymar to his right. Both were probably in the same sort of position, but Mbappe opted to play the ball to the Uruguayan, who hit it narrowly wide. Neymar glared at him.
The Brazilian could only marvel at what Mbappe did next, even if that created even more intrigue. The teenager, however, just created havoc. Just before half-time, he showed supreme footwork to create space at the corner of the box, before cutting it back for Cavani. Cavani this firing it so ferociously into the roof of the net. The PSG number-nine ran off in celebration - and past Neymar, who turned around and looked to Mbappe. They embraced, before Neymar eventually went over to Cavani to give him a quick - but serious-faced - embrace.
That’s what this game had become, that’s how off the pace Bayern were.
That was what was so striking about them, and what PSG’s speed made so stark: that this once vibrant German team were so flat, so slow. Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery may have started on the bench, but that still didn’t explain why they were almost totally lacking in shape. The Germans' best chance by that point naturally came from a set-piece rather than any constructed play, and even that only ended up exposing them. Martinez had a header cleared by Thiago Silva mere inches from the line, and PSG were up the other end within mere seconds. It was again Mbappe making it happen, just adding so much energy to this match and their play, as he made a chance for Neymar by squaring it to him. The Brazilian, however, somehow put his shot wide.
It didn’t take too long for him to get his goal, though, because it didn’t take too long for Mbappe to show how good he is again. On 63 minutes, he once more just drilled his way through the Bayern defence, this time finishing the move with a drag across that opened up the box and opened the goal for Neymar to finish.
David Alaba had been utterly humiliated by Mbappe in the same way that Jerome Boateng was by Leo Messi two and a half years ago. Symbolic. So, whatever about Neymar assertions of being “100 per cent Jesus”, that goal was probably 90 per cent Mbappe.
This was also near-total destruction, to the point that PSG could even afford to bring Mbappe off before the 80th minute. He was afforded the total adulation of the crowd, and an ovation.
He had been that good, an individual that important to what was still a compelling collective statement.
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