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.
Oscar J. Barroso/Imago Images
