Liverpool rode its luck for the vast majority of Wednesday’s meeting with Paris Saint-Germain but ultimately emerged with a lead to take to Anfield.
Alisson set a club record for the amount of saves made in a Champions League match, later stating that his individual performance might just be the best of his career to date.
That should give those who didn’t want the match an idea of just how dominant PSG was on the night, but its superiority counted for nothing come full-time, when Harvey Elliott’s late strike had earned Liverpool a 1-0 win.
The post-match reporting around the game understandably centered around the nature of Liverpool’s victory, with the French press praising PSG’s performance despite the disappointing result.
L’Equipe led with the headline ‘Braquage A L’Anglaise’, which translates to ‘English Robbery’, and eight of the Reds’ starters on the night received a mark of four out of 10 or lower in its player ratings. Alisson was handed a nine, while Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate were each marked at six out of 10.
RMC Sport, meanwhile, said that PSG could take encouragement from its performance: “A feeling of deja vu. PSG lost to Liverpool after outrageously dominating the Reds before being punished on the only shot on target. Dominating without winning, Paris has already done it several times this season at the start of the group stage with a scenario with an equally cruel outcome against Atlético de Madrid. But on Wednesday, the Parisians did not complain. If their chances of qualifying for the quarter-finals have obviously decreased, all the players found reasons for hope before the return to Anfield on Tuesday.”
Le Parisien, however, thinks the one-goal deficit will likely prove too much for PSG to overcome at this early stage in the team’s development under Luis Enrique: “Paris passed the test of its defense, passed the test of its midfield, which was worrying in the first part of the Champions League, in particular because of its low impact. It’s ancient history. It did not validate its management of the end of the match.
“It has nothing left to prove in attack but it has crashed against the red wall. As if it had not been able to keep one or two firecrackers aside after its fireworks of recent weeks. In less than a week in Liverpool, it will be necessary to resist Anfield and its magical atmosphere, the experience of the Reds, with a goal in advance, and finally score. It is a lot and perhaps too much for this PSG so beautiful but still a little small for these summits.”
