BARCELONA – Leo Messi already knows what it is to celebrate a goal with PSG. A great goal, to leave an imprint of the first one to score outside of Barcelona and that served for his new team to leave the wide dominance of an erratic Manchester City in front of the goal and that crashed both against Donnarumma and against the crossbar.
The Argentine star passed little less than unnoticed through the Parque de los Príncipes for more than 70 minutes until he hooked a superb shot from the front of the area that the good Ederson could barely follow with his eyes. Practically with that play, with that electric appearance, Messi justified his participation in the morbid match, the duel between the two probably top favorites of a Champions League that, on the other hand, offered a less brilliant match than expected.
He played Manchester City and crushed PSG. As simple as that. The reunion between Leo and Pep Guardiola, their first meeting without being the protagonist Barça, showed that the citizen team continues to caress the ball, combining, attacking and liking each other and that, opposite, Pochettino knew how to weave a defensive spider web that bothered badly rival forwards.
Mahrez stood out as the most incisive footballer on his team, desperate at the lack of success of his colleagues, especially in a fateful 25th minute that saw Sterling first head the crossbar and then, after the rejection, Bernardo Silva, barely Two meters from the goal and unopposed, his frank, easy and simple shot also crashed off the crossbar.
Before and after, City carried the weight of the game and found a PSG where the famous Messi-Neymar-Mbappé partnership went practically unnoticed. The Brazilian was very discreet and the Frenchman more participative but impotent, Leo ended the first half with some improper numbers for his figure: zero shots on goal, zero chances generated, zero recoveries and second player on his team with fewer touches of the ball just ahead. by Donnarumma.
City knew how to dominate and unplug the three stars of PSG but still suffered from success in the auction and when they ran more desperately in search of the equalized, the accurate and fatal blow from Messi arrived. A shot as capital as it was unthinkable to sentence a triumph of great prestige, of no small importance and that, probably, left its very discreet performance in the background.
In the end it was the least. Because, you know, a bit of Messi … It’s a lot.
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