They were *not* happy
Paris Saint-Germain are fast becoming a cursed club, the team whose bark is bigger than their bite, the ultimate bottlers. After their latest dramatic defeat to dump them out of the Champions League, the French media took aim.
Romelu Lukaku had given Manchester United hope in Wednesday’s last-16 second leg after just a couple of minutes when rounding Gianluigi Buffon after a gift of a backpass by Thilo Kehrer. The Belgian’s second came courtesy of a Buffon fumble and Marcus Rashford sealed the away goals win with a late, VAR-assisted penalty.
Sporting daily L’Equipe labelled the defeat “even worse” on their front page as the French club were knocked out at this stage for the third year in a row. Capital newspaper Le Parisien dubbed the exit an “unforgivable elimination” and were equally unforgiving in their player ratings.
Kehrer was awarded just 2/10, Buffon got 3/10 and Kylian Mbappe a mere 4/10 for his work while “lonely at the tip of the attack”. Something of a different approach was taken by L’Equipe here, handing out just one 8/10 to United’s players as they suggested the visitors were somewhat fortunate.
Similarly, newspaper Le Monde described PSG as the “first victim” of video referees in the Champions League, given Presnel Kimpembe’s handball was only picked up by VAR after the referee had awarded a corner. They also rued the “curse” of the club while under the ownership of the incredibly wealthy Qatari sovereign wealth fund.
Over at Libération, a comment piece noted that the hosts theoretically had a 97% chance of progressing to the quarter-finals when welcoming the Red Devils to Parc des Princes with a 2-0 first leg lead. Writer Gregory Schneider goes on to describe the game in nightmareish fashion, as “Dantean” and “a matter of karma” for the big spending PSG.
