Paris Saint-Germain had a wobble against Aston Villa but they came through a tough examination and Luis Enrique believes they will be stronger for it. They remain the favourites to win the Champions League. Over to you, Kylian Mbappe.
With PSG well placed to become the first French side in over 30 years to lift the trophy, this is an awkward time for Mbappe. He risks being the man who joined the current champions of Europe only to discover he was leaving the next champions of Europe.
Bad enough in itself but worse when there are plenty arguing that the power shift from Madrid to Paris has been partially facilitated by his move in the opposite direction. Only a comeback for the ages by Real Madrid against Arsenal would change the narrative.
Even in losing 3-2 to Villa on the night, enough to progress 5-4 on aggregate, PSG showed why the opposition captain John McGinn rated them as the best team he has ever faced. Technically excellent and packed with pace, they punish in different ways.
“Of course, we are a team that attacks well against a low block,” said Luis Enrique afterwards. “But we are even better when there is space.” Their two goals came on the counter-attack. But the teamwork also stands out, sticking at it amid the onslaught.
Theirs is the story of a team that lost arguably the best player in the world but found something in the process. For Luis Enrique, it is vindication. He not only believed that he could improve PSG once Mbappe had departed, he had told everyone exactly that.
“I was very brave last season when I told you we would have a better team in attack and defence,” said the former Barcelona coach in February. “I still think we are better in attack and defence, the figures are there to say it. The players took it as a challenge.”
PSG have already created more big chances in Ligue 1 than in any of the previous five seasons – with six games still to go. “I told you that rather than having a player who scores 40 goals, I wanted players who all score a lot.” That is what has happened.
Ousmane Dembele, scorer of only three league goals last season, has 21 in the competition this time around and 29 overall. Bradley Barcola has weighed in with 16, Desire Doue scoring eight. In Moneyball terms, they replaced Mbappe in the aggregate.
But the more damaging message this sends from Mbappe’s perspective is what can be achieved when everyone is putting the work in defensively too. It was a point that Luis Enrique laboured last season – most memorably captured in the documentary footage.
“You have to set that example first as a person and as a player by going to press,” said the PSG coach, imploring Mbappe to take his defensive responsibilities seriously, attempting to persuade him by stressing that Michael Jordan had done it in basketball.
“And tracking back so quickly,” continued Luis Enrique. “Why? To be a leader. Because you think that you only have to score goals. Of course, you are a world phenomenon, a top-class player – no doubt about it, but that does not work for me,” he said, ominously.
“A true leader is when you cannot help us with the goals … you help us with everything related to defensive tasks,” he added, before summing up by concluding: “If … you set yourself as an example to press, do you know what we have? A f****** team machine.”
Luis Enrique has that now. It was illustrated well when Doue tracked back to shut down a Villa break during the first leg in Paris. In the game at Villa Park, there was some backs-to-the-wall defending but there was also lots of defending from the front to be done.
Mbappe never really grasped that. Perhaps he achieved too much too soon to be convinced of the need. Understandable when you have propelled Monaco to the title at 18, won a World Cup while still a teenager and then scored a hat-trick in the next final.
Presumably, however, winning the Champions League – and the Ballon d’Or that could accompany it – is something that Mbappe is rather keen on. It was one of the reasons for joining the 15-time champions of Europe. Now it is a matter of actually doing it.
For Carlo Ancelotti, it is the ultimate first-world problem to have Mbappe foisted upon him, but this is a coach who has made a career out of making the parts fit. Even so, tweaking a team that had just won the Champions League is a test of management.
Mbappe himself is astute enough to appreciate the complications. “My arrival changed many things in the team.” Asked to play more centrally despite not being a natural back-to-goal player, he would much prefer to occupy the positions Vinicius Junior frequents.
It could be that it is the Brazilian who is required to move on eventually, but in the meantime Ancelotti is attempting to accommodate last season’s front three with Mbappe for company. It means Jude Bellingham moving deeper, Rodrygo adjusting too.
Against Arsenal, in contrast to the willing forward runners of PSG, Madrid were carrying a couple of passengers defensively and it cost them. The first two goals came from Declan Rice free-kicks but attempts to explain the result away have been unconvincing.
Madrid know that they are easier to play against now. What had seemed like a fudge last season, with Bellingham playing between Vinicius and Rodrygo, now looks like a relative template for success, having won them the Champions League and regained LaLiga.
Real Madrid’s starting line-up in the 2024 Champions League final
Compare the team that won the trophy at Wembley in June to the one well beaten by Arsenal back on the other side of north London. In simplistic terms, Mbappe has come in for Dani Carvajal while others, Fede Valverde included, have had to shift back.
It has left them vulnerable. Mbappe has still scored goals, lots of them. There are some signs of an understanding with Bellingham. If it clicks it can be beautiful, but there are no guarantees. And yet, because this is Madrid, belief in a potential comeback persists.
If that feels fanciful, for Mbappe it is more like an urgent need. His horror tackle in the game against Alaves at the weekend, for which he was sent off, suggests that a player accustomed to bending games to his will is feeling that pressure on him to deliver.
It is 16 years since Zlatan Ibrahimovic left Inter to sign for Barcelona, then the reigning champions of Europe, only for the Italian side to not only knock them out but go on to win it themselves. Right now, Mbappe is scrambling just to make the reunion date.
