PARIS — Has the enchantment faded for Paris Saint-Germain?
It undoubtedly seemed so as Luis Enrique’s triumphant UEFA Champions League squad struggled to a narrow 5-4 overall playoff victory against AS Monaco, but if they still possess the special quality that brought such immense success the previous campaign, they need to display it once more – and without delay.
PSG will meet either Chelsea or Barcelona in the last 16 stage after having bested their Ligue 1 adversaries, but they are unlikely to advance significantly in the competition if they are as lacklustre as they were against Sebastien Pocognoli’s team in Paris.
With a 3-2 advantage from the initial leg after reversing a two-goal disadvantage to win at Stade Louis II, PSG conceded the opening goal to Maghnes Akliouche’s 45th-minute strike and were finding it tough to regain their advantage until Mamadou Coulibaly’s 58th-minute sending off due to a pair of bookings shifted the momentum of both the match and the overall contest toward the hosts.
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Within eight minutes of Coulibaly departing the field, PSG were ahead 2-1 for the evening thanks to goals from Marquinhos and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and the customary order was reinstated, but the fact that it required the eighth-ranked team in Ligue 1 to be diminished to ten men prior to the European champions truly performing should trigger serious concerns for Luis Enrique.Twelve months prior, after barely making it to the knockout rounds following a final push in the League Phase, PSG found their stride in the Champions League with an overwhelming 10-0 overall demolition of another French club, Brest, at this point in the tournament.
From then onwards, PSG decisively defeated every opponent they encountered. Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal were all eliminated by the French titleholders before they concluded a remarkable Champions League campaign by triumphing over Internazionale with a 5-0 scoreline in the final in Munich.
Luis Enrique had assembled a squad that was so thrilling and uninhibited that it drew parallels with the Barcelona side, including Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez and Neymar, that he led to a triple crown 10 years earlier.
Ousmane Dembele’s scoring prowess was set to earn him the Ballon d’Or, but Kvaratskhelia, Désiré Doué, João Neves, Vitinha, Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes also played critically significant parts in establishing PSG as the premier squad globally.
Had they vanquished Chelsea to claim the FIFA Club World Cup trophy in the final in New Jersey last July, PSG would have won everything they vied for in 2025.
But perhaps that exhausting month-long period in the United States last summer exacted too high a price on Luis Enrique’s contingent. Some players had fewer than fourteen days of recuperation before contesting, and defeating, Tottenham Hotspur in the UEFA Super Cup in August.
Dembele has had his fitness issues this season, as has Doue and Fabián Ruiz, and as a unit, PSG appears to lack that vital component that made them invincible the previous campaign.
They had a liveliness across the entire squad which has dissipated and that was plainly visible versus Monaco.
But maybe it ought not to be astonishing. PSG couldn’t secure victory in 15 of their 38 matches in every tournament so far this season. Last season, they failed to win 17 of their 65 games, so the decline is apparent.
Exhaustion, both corporeal and psychological, would seem to be inevitable given PSG’s intense schedule last year, but there is also the challenge of repeating past triumphs.
Many teams find it arduous to “replicate success” after significant achievement — look at Liverpool’s performances in the Premier League this season — and PSG were exceptionally commanding the previous campaign that it would be unrealistic to anticipate an identical level of performance in the current period. Yet although they have been less than compelling, the season is entering its crucial phase and PSG remain contenders in the foremost tournament of them all.
Dembele and Ruiz are both a week or two from full match readiness, so both might return promptly for the initial leg of the last 16 against Chelsea or Barcelona.
If Luis Enrique can regain the services of those two, he will have 10 of the players who achieved so greatly the previous year. The sole missing player would be goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who transferred to Manchester City after Lucas Chevalier’s acquisition.
So, the team is almost identical and the crucial encounters are looming once more.
But there is just a persistent apprehension that PSG are losing momentum and the last 16 could be the conclusion of their journey.
Maybe the enchantment has truly dissipated?