(Football news) Arne Slot’s men somehow left the French capital with a 1-0 win on their record from last week’s first leg, where a super sub and a super goalkeeper were their heroes of the hour.
Try as they might for the full 90 minutes, an increasingly desperate PSG remarkably failed to breach the goal of an inspired Alisson Becker – barring an offside Khvicha Kvaratskhelia effort – as the long-serving Liverpool number one made a masterful nine saves at the Parc des Princes.
While Luis Enrique’s side registered a total of zero goals from 27 shots, Liverpool headed home with the critical strike from just one of their two efforts on the evening, as Harvey Elliott punished PSG’s wastefulness with a dramatic 87th-minute winner off the bench.
Only once before in the Champions League had a team won a knockout game despite having a shots difference of -25 or more, and winning the first leg has been a positive omen for Liverpool over the past two decades, as they have progressed from their last 14 Champions League ties when prevailing in the opening battle.
The 2001-02 Bayer Leverkusen side were the last to eliminate the Reds in such circumstances, but where PSG failed last Wednesday evening, Southampton succeeded on Saturday afternoon, as Will Smallbone capitalised on a rare defensive mix-up to give the Premier League’s basement boys the lead.
However, Liverpool came out a different beast in the second 45 and levelled through Darwin Nunez before Mohamed Salah’s game-winning brace from the penalty spot, which saw the extraordinary Egyptian become the Reds’ third-highest scorer of all time and equal the record for the most goal involvements in a 38-game Premier League season.
The hosts’ 3-1 fightback win over the Saints made it four victories on the spin across all competitions, but as was the case at the Parc des Princes, there were elements of that performance – especially in the first half – that should have PSG licking their lips.
As surprising as Les Parisiens’ first-leg loss may have been given their volume of opportunities, it was just the same old story for PSG in the Champions League, the one trophy that continues to elude them amid their non-stop spending sprees.
The perennial Ligue 1 champions can take inspiration from last year’s tournament as they seek to complete a mesmerising comeback job on Tuesday, though, as they memorably lost 3-2 at home to Barcelona in the 2023-24 quarter-finals before advancing with a 4-1 second-leg success in Catalonia.
Coincidentally, Enrique’s men thumped top-flight rivals Rennes by the same scoreline on Saturday, righting their attacking wrongs from the first leg as Bradley Barcola and Goncalo Ramos netted before the dazzling Ousmane Dembele netted his 19th and 20th Ligue 1 goals of the season in added time.
By making light work of Les Rouges et Noir, PSG extended their winning run away from home to an astounding 13 matches across all competitions, including each of their last three in the Champions League, albeit to more modest opposition in Brest, Stuttgart and Red Bull Salzburg.
In fact, none of the last 15 French teams to face an English club away from home in Europe has managed to win, although PSG themselves were the last to do so against Manchester United in December 2020, offering further hope of a Merseyside turnaround unless Alisson has another self-professed ‘best performance of his life’.
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