(Football news) In the first meeting, the Ligue 1 winners overcame a first-half storm to win by a score of two goals to zero, since their hosts had already suffered one round of elimination.
Real Sociedad, semi-finalists of the 1982–1983 European Cup, was playing in the Champions League knockout stages for just the second time under its current moniker. They had their moments in the first half at the Parc des Princes on Valentine’s Day, but they were not feeling the love in front of goal.
Wasting a succession of promising chances in the opening period would unsurprisingly prove fatal in the French capital, where Kylian Mbappe broke the deadlock for Les Parisiens in the 58th minute, before Bradley Barcola surged past Hamari Traore and finished a slick solo run with a finish through Alex Remiro’s legs at his near post.
A two-goal deficit is not insurmountable for Imanol Alguacil’s troops, but history does not favour the men in blue and white, who lost 1-0 to PSG’s Ligue 1 rivals Lyon in the first leg of their last-16 tie in 2003-04 – their only other knockout round appearance since 1992 – and suffered the same fate in the second leg.
Momentum is not on Real Sociedad’s side either, as since following up their first-leg loss with a 2-1 triumph over Mallorca, Alguacil’s men have been beaten in three straight matches, including a crushing Copa del Rey penalty-shootout loss to Los Piratas in the semi-finals.
A weakened team then went down 3-2 to faltering titans Sevilla in Saturday’s La Liga fixture, meaning that Alguacil’s out-of-sorts charges have just one victory to boast from their last nine games in all tournaments, and their alarming winless sequence at home stands at seven matches since they coincidentally beat Sevilla 2-1 in top-flight action in November.
Bidding to banish the last-16 curse which has haunted them in many a Champions League tournament, a PSG side still searching for their maiden top-level European honour need only avoid a catastrophic collapse at the Reale Arena to take another step towards that elusive crown.
While their upcoming hosts have recorded several blots on their notebook in 2024, the French champions head to Spain with an impressive 20-match unbeaten run to protect, although they have dropped points in their last two Ligue 1 fixtures with Rennes (0-0) and Monaco (0-0).
The gloves of Gianluigi Donnarumma were required on several occasions to keep the latter out on Friday night, but despite the watchable action on the pitch, the cameras would often pan to the stands, where Mbappe took his seat alongside his mother after a shock half-time substitution.
The attacker, who is headed to Real Madrid, will now get a taste of the Spanish weather on Tuesday when PSG advances on five of the previous nine instances they have gone ahead on aggregate in a Champions League knockout match. This is the tenth time PSG has advanced this far in the competition.
PSG are also without a clean sheet in their past 12 away Champions League games against Spanish teams. They were also infamously defeated 4-0 in the first leg of Barcelona’s 2016–17 Remondata, but with only two goals conceded in their past six away games, the team captained by Luis Enrique, the architect of that historic 6-1 thumping, shouldn’t suffer the same fate here.
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