Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Paris Saint-Germain has a lead in Spain, seemingly entirely in control, only to capitulate by conceding a late flurry of goals. That this wasn’t quite as bad as La Remontada to Barcelona in 2017—almost five years to the day—will be no consolation. How can this keep on happening? How can PSG, every time it comes under pressure, lose its self-control and self-discipline in this way?
It has been 11 years now since Qatar took over PSG, in which time it has spent almost $2 billion on players. It smashed the world transfer record to sign Neymar, spent another fortune on Kylian Mbappé and then added Lionel Messi for good measure, and it still wasn’t enough. What seemed for an hour as though it was going to be a night all about Mbappé, his brilliance and his possible destination in the summer, ended up being all about Karim Benzema, who scored a sensational hat trick in 17 minutes to give Real Madrid a 3–2 aggregate triumph over PSG and a place in the Champions League quarterfinals.
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But brilliant as he was, brilliant as Luka Modrić was, brilliant as Carlo Ancelotti’s substitutions were, the question, yet again with PSG, was how? How could a side dominate as it had for two-and-a-half of the three hours and end up losing so embarrassingly? Perhaps it’s too simple to say this is a team that dominates to such an extent domestically that it has lost the capacity to fight, but again and again it disintegrates in adversity.
Mbappé had seemed to be the protagonist. As he warmed up before kickoff and gave a glance around the stands of the new Bernabéu, it was taken by those who want to him to sign for Madrid as him familiarizing himself with his new home, a sure sign he would be joining. If Madrid lost, it was said, it would begin the process of making a formal bid immediately after the final whistle. Mbappé is out of contract at the end of this season and has been able to sign a pre-contract elsewhere since the winter. He has made no secret of his desire to one day play for Real Madrid, which made an effort to pry him from PSG’s project this past summer.
But easy as it is to forget in a world that often seems more excited by the transfer market than the football, first there was a match to be played—and Mbappé looked central to that as well. He had already had two shots saved by Thibaut Courtois and an effort ruled out because Nuno Mendes carelessly was caught offside when he ran onto Neymar’s through ball six minutes before halftime.
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At the best of times there is no catching him, and these were not the best of times. For PSG’s opener, Madrid had been caught going the other way and Neymar’s pass had been all but instantaneous. Mbappé, with that characteristic grace, strode through, elegantly tall, shaped his body as though to bend the ball into the bottom right corner, looked at the bottom right corner—had spoken in the build-up even of his admiration for Thierry Henry who always bent the ball into the bottom right corner—then dragged the ball into the bottom left, wrong-footing Courtois. It was a magnificent finish to match the through ball and no more than PSG deserved.
Gianluigi Donnarumma had made one outstanding stretching save to keep out a Benzema curler, but that aside, PSG had looked in control, up 1–0 on the day, 2–0 on aggregate. It was tempting then to think that Mauricio Pochettino had found a balance, a way of accommodating the stellar front three. His future, now, is surely in doubt; there is something in the character of the club that no coach, it seems, can overcome.
Mbappé still seemed to be the preeminent figure in the match when Donnarumma dallied in possession after 61 minutes. He claimed a foul as Benzema challenged him, and perhaps he had a point, but there was no need even to take the risk. Benzema knocked in Real Madrid’s first, as Vinicius Junior returned the ball to the center, and the sense started to build that it could turn into another one of those nightmare nights that PSG knows far too well. Then Modrić came alive, 36 but as impish as ever, squeezing a perfectly calibrated pass to Benzema to pull Real Madrid ahead on the day, level on aggregate. There wasn’t even time to contemplate how the lack of the away-goals rule could have changed the tie, as PSG kicked off and 10.5 seconds later Benzema was somehow sliding in his third after a Vinicius dart.
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It was a quite staggering turnaround, a night that even in the glorious history of Real Madrid will be remembered and one that will be, too, even in the inglorious history of PSG’s. And perhaps for the Parisians, the question of what happens next becomes all the more pressing. Messi is aging. Neymar, too, is now on the wrong side of 30, and Mbappé seems more likely now to turn down PSG’s offer to make him the best-paid player in history to join Madrid in the summer. If a Champions League title run was being counted on as part of what it would take to convince him to stay, that being part of such a galvanizing effort for his home team would alter the calculus, that can all be put to bed now.
With the World Cup in November, 2022 was supposed to be a golden year for Qatari football. But for its club project, on the heels of a summer in which it constructed a squad of so many accomplished individuals that the possibilities for a collective glory seemed endless, it could be the year when it all falls apart.
