Kylian Mbappé had always looked the player most likely to break the deadlock and, sure enough, in the fourth minute of injury time, it was his moment of brilliance that gave Paris Saint-Germain a 1–0 win over Real Madrid in the first leg of the Champion League last 16. As Lionel Messi missed a penalty it had threatened to be a frustrating evening for PSG, which had dominated the game, before the 23-year-old, who has been strongly linked with a move to Real Madrid in the summer, cut between Éder Militão and Lucas Vázquez and slid his shot under Thibaut Courtois.
Rather than being more of the same for PSG, another opportunity missed for a club that is haunted by its failure to win the Champions League since it was taken over by Qatari Sports Investments in 2011, this suddenly became one of the more significant results in the club’s history. Madrid will be rather more proactive in the Bernabeu bit that in turn may create more space for PSG’s forward line so it will not spend its night trying to thread passes through a massed rearguard.
