(Football news) The Ligue 1 champions hop across the English Channel with a 3-1 advantage from the opening battle, but as Unai Emery knows all too well, the Parisiens are prone to a second-leg catastrophe.
After showcasing his punditry proficiency alongside Ally McCoist and Rio Ferdinand, His Royal Highness Prince William took his seat at the Parc des Princes, where his beloved Villa side sent the heir to the British throne into raptures through Morgan Rogers’s back-post finish.
However, on an evening where embryonic attacking talents stole the show in the French capital, two exceptional strikes from Desire Doue and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia turned the first leg on its head, before PSG delivered one final gut punch through Nuno Mendes’s 92nd-minute finish.
A 3-1 deficit is still far from insurmountable, but the difference between a one goal and two-goal disadvantage in the Champions League can be night and day, and Aston Villa have been eliminated on each of the previous two occasions where they have lost the first leg of a European knockout match by two or more goals.
The Lions’ trip to relegated Southampton at the weekend was also an uncomfortable watch for the opening 70 minutes, before strikes from Ollie Watkins, John McGinn and Donyell Malen propelled Villa to a morale-boosting 3-0 win, one that spared Marco Asensio’s blushes after the PSG loanee had two penalties saved by Aaron Ramsdale.
Tuesday’s hosts remain in with a shot of qualifying for the 2025-26 Champions League via their Premier League position, and they now return to a ground where they have avoided defeat in each of their last 17 matches across all competitions, one of a few pleasing Villa Park statistics.
Indeed, the Lions have also won each of their last four games on home soil, have scored at least two goals in seven of their last eight in front of their own fans, and Emery has won 11 of his last 13 home matches in European competition. To put it simply, PSG can take nothing for granted.
A side reborn since their disastrous start to the league phase – which even saw them flirt with an early exit from the Champions League – there is now genuine talk of PSG being the favourites for continental glory come the summer, if they can avoid falling back into old habits.
It has been almost exactly eight years since Emery’s Parisiens were the victims of the famous Barcelona remontada, and of the seven previous occasions where PSG have won the first leg of a Champions League knockout battle by at least two goals, they have been knocked out in three of them.
No side has ever been eliminated in four UCL knockout ties when winning the first leg by two goals or more, but the feeling around this current PSG outfit is different, as Luis Enrique and Luis Campos have harmonised a young group after the failures of the galacticos era.
Unlike Villa, Les Parisiens have just enjoyed the luxury of a weekend with no domestic football, although they had already wrapped up the 2024-25 Ligue 1 title with six games to spare earlier this month and could still achieve Invincibles status in the top flight.
While Arsenal and Bayern Munich have already subjected PSG to away beatings this season, Enrique’s side have now won an outrageous 16 straight road matches across all competitions – including their penalty progression against Liverpool – but the French titans may still be the ones celebrating even if that streak is snapped in the West Midlands.
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