Désiré Doué and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia scored a goal in each half on Wednesday night at the Parc des Princes in the French capital, giving Paris Saint-Germain a 2-0 victory over Liverpool.
Liverpool entered the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final in Paris off the back of a 4-0 hammering on Saturday by Manchester City in the FA Cup – and they were 1-0 down within 12 minutes against PSG.
Doué wriggled into the Liverpool penalty area and fired off a shot that took a deflection off Ryan Gravenberch and looped over goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili into the net to give PSG the lead.
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Doué should have made it 2-0 in the 39th minute but Mamardashvili blocked the effort.
This appeared to energise Liverpool who put together their best move of the game, involving some slick interplay around the PSG penalty area, before Jeremie Frimpong strayed offside to receive Florian Wirtz's neat flick.
But it was the hosts who enjoyed the better opportunities. However, Ousmane Dembélé squandered a chance to finish off a dazzling six-man counter-attack, and Joao Neves was next to miss the target when his shot landed the wrong side of the right-hand post.
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In the 53rd minute, Dembélé again failed to score. From 12 metres out, the 28-year-old Ballon d' Or winner thrashed the ball over the cross bar of the goal.
The blunder heralded a phase in which PSG lost their poise and panache, but both were restored in a flash of brilliance in the 65th minute.
Kvaratskhelia picked up the ball just outside his own penalty area and the Georgia international moved it on to Vitinha who nudged it on to Neves.
As Kvaratskhelia darted forward, Neves played the ball through Frimpong's legs for Kvaratskhelia.
He shrugged off Gravenberch's challenge to dance his way around Mamardashvili, fake a shot to fool Joe Gomez and Milos Kerkez on the goal line and slot the ball into the net, to the joy of the crowd and his teammates.
PSG were awarded a penalty five minutes later when Warren Zaire-Emery went down under a challenge from Ibrahim Konaté, but referee Jose Sanchez overturned his decision after consulting his video assistants.
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Dembélé's miserable night ended when he was substituted in the 88th minute, soon after he again fluffed a goal-scoring opportunity following another lightning counter-attack.
“We had the chance to score more goals," Kvaratskhelia told French broadcaster Canal +. "We should have done so at certain points."
"But it's OK," he added. "We played a good game and we need to stay focused. The atmosphere at Anfield for the second leg will be incredible. We're going to start preparing right away.”
In Wednesday night's other quarter-final first leg, Atletico Madrid won 2-0 at Barcelona.
