PSG stuck in a two-dimensional world where step up to face the Champions League’s best is proving too big

Walking over Ligue 1 opposition is not ideal preparation for facing the Napolis and Liverpools of Europe’s elite, with Thomas Tuchel needing to find a way to lift his side when it matters most

European football is meant to be different from domestic football but for Paris Saint-Germain it feels as if they are living in two different dimensions.

In Ligue 1 PSG are now suspended in a permanent fantasy realm where football is merely performance, never competition. They are incapable of anything other than success, winning all 14 of their league games so far this year. They went to Monaco and won 4-0, Marseille and won 2-0 and thumped Lyon 5-0 at the Parc des Princes. Even this weekend, in their worst display of the season, they beat Toulouse 1-0 thanks to a dream goal from Edinson Cavani: chest control, left foot flick, right foot volley. No one else can even come close.

It is beyond imagination that PSG might not win the title this year and the only question left is whether they do so in April or March. Even Serie A looks competitive compared to France.

And yet when PSG play in Europe everything changes. From a world where every opponent kneels before them they suddenly collide with the physical reality of the competitive game. Here, teams do not try to lose by just a few and conserve their energy. They try to beat PSG instead. And sometimes when you watch PSG in Europe they look like a team slightly taken aback by the temerity of that.

This dual existence - dominance at home, difficulty abroad - means that all of the pressure PSG face as a club is piled onto these occasional mid-week games scattered through the season. This is what Qatar bought the club for, this is why managers are appointed, and this is why managers are sacked. Laurent Blanc could not survive losing to a weak Manchester City side in 2016, Unai Emery was a dead man walking after collapsing to Barcelona in 2017. That is why Wednesday night’s game against Liverpool is the most important of Thomas Tuchel’s career so far.

PSG also have an injury concern over the fitness of Neymar (Reuters)

Because PSG’s Champions League campaign, like Liverpool’s, is hanging by a thread. If PSG win then they will just need to beat Red Star Belgrade next month to qualify. If they lose then they will almost certainly go out. And Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and friends will be playing their European football in February against Slavia Prague, Astana or Sarpsborg 08.

High stakes in Paris, then, and there is a mood of anxiety about the game. And not just because Neymar is not 100 per cent fit, as he tries to get over a groin strain. But because PSG’s recent record in these big games, against teams that are not immediately cowed by their resources and players, is not good. This morning France Football ran a feature entitled ‘Faible face aux forts’ (‘Weak when facing the strong’) detailing how poor PSG are against other top sides.

Since PSG beat Bayern Munich 3-0 in the group stage in September 2017, 14 months ago, they have played six games against equivalent opposition. And they have not won any of them. First they lost 3-1 in Munich at the end of last year’s group stage. Then they lost 2-1 and 3-1 to Real Madrid in the two legs of the last-16. Then, under Tuchel in this year’s group, they lost 3-2 at Anfield then scraped two draws, 2-2 and 1-1, against a ferocious Napoli side. They even needed a 93rd minute Angel di Maria equaliser in Paris to avoid defeat. This run has to change tomorrow.

There are plenty of theories about why PSG cannot win these games but the most convincing comes down to a lack of intensity. This team is not used to being challenged and when suddenly every ball is fought for, every decision scrutinised and every mistake punished then it becomes a very different game. France Football even pointed to the fact that in these big games, up against hungrier opposition, PSG are usually comprehensively out-fouled: 14-10 when they lost at Anfield. 15-9 when they drew at home with Napoli. But this is the reality of football that Liverpool and Napoli have to live with every week. PSG find that it takes some getting used to.

Champions League failure ultimately cost Unai Emery his job at PSG (Getty)

Tuchel knows this better than anyone. He was brought in to deliver the same sort of aggressive, intense, organised pressing game that made him so famous at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund. Just as Emery was brought in to bring his own game from Sevilla. But both men have found that this is ultimately a players’ club, and getting them to do what the manager wants, especially when they have no reason to do so 95 per cent of the time, is not exactly easy. “We need more aggressive positioning and passing,” Tuchel said after Saturday’s game with Toulouse. “We have to play one or two touches, with more precision, to be stronger with our counter-pressing.”

But then the best way to learn this is with practice, and that is what PSG never get to have. Thomas Meunier said that it is easy in the league for PSG to keep the ball for 10 minutes at a time, and that their only challenge is try to unpick teams. Liverpool will be a completely different test, and PSG will have to find something inside themselves that is not easily summoned at will.