Two of probably the most in type groups in Europe are to conflict heads as Paris Saint-Germain host Liverpool on the Parc des Princes right now.
Alike of their prolific purpose scorers, urgent potential, and dominance, this tie needs to be one of many spectacles of the season, with PSG supervisor, Luis Enrique, saying ‘it might have been a Champions League ultimate’.
Arne Slot -Liverpool
With the Reds flying on the prime of the Premier League desk, their focus now shifts to dominating Europe’s greatest stage in opposition to arguably the opposite most in type crew.
PSG have been in an unimaginable run of type. They’re 22 video games unbeaten since their 1-0 loss to Bayern Munich within the Champions League on November 26, 2024. On prime of that, they’re the truth is unbeaten in Ligue 1 to date this season and presently on a ten recreation win streak.
Regardless of this spectacular current type, their begin to the Champions league because the departure of their star man, Kylian Mbappe, was tenuous shedding 3 of their first 4 matches which means they completed fifteenth within the Champions League desk.
These early faults and their now incredible type has meant that they now need to face Liverpool, league desk winners, within the spherical of 16.
Their techniques have modified
immensely over this season. Changeing from a 4-3-3 to a 3-2-5 when in possession, they’ve put most of their concentrate on the wingers and fullbacks utilising that huge diamond.
They rank second solely to Actual Madrid throughout Europes prime leagues of their use of change of play because of their positional fluidity as a way to draw the opposition out of practice and exploit them.
Their urgent depth would rank the very best within the Premier League, winning 6.5 duels, tackles and interceptions per minute of opponent possession – Liverpool are ranked third within the Premier league with 5.9.
Since discovering this run of type, the stats would present that they’re arguably higher all-round with out Kylian Mbappe as their goalscorers at the moment are far more distributed by means ofout the crew, with Mbappe scoring 35 per cent of the objectives final season, now with Ousmane Dembele having 25 per cent of the share of objectives regardless of his phenomenal type which is what Luis Enrique hoped for.
“Somewhat than having a participant who scores 40 objectives, I needed gamers who all rating so much.”
Liverpool have confronted PSG solely 4 instances over the course of their historical past. With 2 wins every, each at dwelling, PSG solely come out on prime with purpose difference, scoring 7 to Liverpools 6, however it’s the legendary James Milner who holds the golden boot on this fixture having scored a penalty in each legs within the 2018/19 Champions’ League group levels.
These subsequent two legs will fairly presumably be probably the most tough fixtures each crew should face en path to the ultimate, however it’ll absolutely be probably the most entertaining.
—onefootball
