Bayern Munich will be wary of PSG causing a surprise when one of these European giants exits the Champions League.
Easily the game of the week, it is set up beautifully with the Germans having everything to lose.
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Kingsley Coman’s second-half header may gave the 2020 winners (they beat PSG to win the title in Lisbon that year) a slender lead coming back to the Allianz Arena. But PSG have a blueprint for success in Munich, having beaten Hansi Flick’s Bayern 3-2 in the 2020/21 quarter-final first leg.
Kylian Mbappé scored twice that evening, and the France international’s cameo off the bench in Paris on 14 February suggests he could play a major role in the teams’ latest tussle.
“When we play attacking football, it’s uncomfortable for them,” Mbappé, who has seven goals in as many Champions League appearances this season, said in the aftermath of the 1-0 first-leg defeat.
“You have to be positive. From what I’ve seen [in the first leg], it’s not over. We’re going over there to qualify.”
Mbappe only made an appearance off the bench in the first leg last month.
Yet the 24-year-old France superstar did enough in his short time on the pitch then – including having a goal disallowed for a marginal offside – to make it clear that he can swing the tie the Parisians’ way.
Since that game, the Ligue 1 leaders have recovered from a worrying slump in form to claim three straight domestic wins, scoring 11 goals in the process.
Mbappe has netted five of them, including one in Saturday’s 4-2 win over Nantes that saw him overtake Edinson Cavani and become PSG’s all-time top scorer, five and a half years after signing from Monaco in 2017.
Mbappe has 30 goals in 30 games for his club this season and has a strong claim to be the best player in the world right now, even if Lionel Messi recently pipped him to win The Best Fifa men’s player award.
Messi, with 18 goals himself for PSG this season, is mainly there to serve Mbappe in Christophe Galtier’s side, for whom the absence of Neymar due to injury in Munich – and for several more months – may not matter.
Going out of the Champions League in the first knockout round for what would be the fifth time in seven seasons really would matter for PSG.