3 Things We Learned: PSG vs FC Barcelona

Barcelona were humiliated 4-0 by an excellent performance from Unai Emery’s men.

Issues in Midfield

The main problem for Barcelona, and the key area that the Parisians were able to exploit was the midfield. They were able to bypass the Barcelona midfield with ease, and the lack of pace or intensity in the midfield gave the PSG players space to run at the defence. This meant that skillful players such as Ángel Di Maria and Julian Draxler were in 1v1’s against Sergi Roberto. They couldn’t have gotten anything better because Roberto is still a midfielder playing right-back. Unai Emery’s focus on exploiting the weak Barça right side was smart, and it paid dividends.

André Gomes was lackluster because he provided no help to Roberto, and didn’t contribute anything meaningful offensively. In all fairness, though, neither did the experienced veteran Andrés Iniesta. Granted, he is in the team due to his creative abilities, but he didn’t do enough to protect the defence, whether this be due to lack of match fitness or something else. This gave the Parisians plenty of space to run into, which even Sergio Busquets couldn’t stop because he was being pulled from one side to another.

The substitutions were too late, and weren’t right either. Ivan Rakitić should have come on at the start of the second half for Gomes. His energy was needed to support Roberto, and put pressure on Marco Verratti who was controlling the game until he went off. Bringing on Rafinha did little because he isn’t defensively minded necessarily, and there was a much better option in Denis Suárez who is disciplined, and can operate in tight spaces. Nonetheless, it’s debatable how much these substitutions would have done anyway because PSG were stunning and clinical.

Difference in Intensity

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Another key theme in this match was the difference in intensity between the two teams. From the start, PSG were pressing high up the pitch with purpose, hounding any Barcelona player with the ball. The amount of times they forced the ball out of play or directly intercepted the ball was ridiculous. It seemed like any 50/50 or loose ball was won by them due to the sheer energy they were exerting. The few times they did lose the ball were immediately made up by their attempts to recover it, which was in complete contrast to the Barça players. The Catalans seemed disinterested, and aloof from the events that were happening in front of them.

Usually, the Barcelona system means that the other team expends much more energy in their attempt to regain the ball. However, when it goes wrong, Barcelona are often unable to cope because they struggle to adapt to the new circumstances, which leads to disjointed displays such as this one. Emery succeeded in rattling them early one, and they never fully recovered from it. The performance of Lionel Messi was a perfect example of this, it was probably one of the worst games he has ever had. It was a masterful tactical plan from Emery as he humiliated Luis Enrique completely.

Interesting Second Leg

This result sets up a fascinating second tie at Camp Nou. Never before has a team come back from a four goal deficit in Champions League history. Therefore, it’s extremely unlikely that they will come back from this. If anything, their style of play goes against them here because of its focus on patient probing of the opposition. Recent history goes against them as well because the last time they lost 4-0 in a game in the knockout stages was against Bayern Munich in 2013, and they lost 7-0 on aggregate to them.

However, they have been great at home in the Champions League this season with fifteen goals scored and none conceded. They have shown flashes of brilliance this year with the 7-0 demolition of Celtic, and the 4-0 thrashing of Manchester City being examples of this. But this PSG side is a tier above them opponents, so Barça will need a truly world-class performance. Personally, I think they will come up just short with a heroic effort in the second leg. We shall have to wait and see, though.