PARIS — Has the magic gone for Paris Saint-Germain?
It certainly felt like it as Luis Enrique’s UEFA Champions League winners toiled to a 5-4 aggregate playoff win against AS Monaco, but if they still have the X-factor that delivered so much glory last season, they need to show it again — and quickly.
PSG will face either Chelsea or Barcelona in the Round of 16 after overcoming their Ligue 1 rivals, but they won’t go much further in the competition if they are as unimpressive as they were against Sebastien Pocognoli’s team in Paris.
Leading 3-2 from the first leg after overturning a 2-0 deficit to win at Stade Louis II, PSG fell behind to Maghnes Akliouche‘s 45th-minute opener and were struggling to restore their lead until Mamadou Coulibaly‘s 58th-minute dismissal for two yellow cards turned the game, and the tie, back in the home side’s favour.
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Within eight minutes of Coulibaly leaving the pitch, PSG were 2-1 up on the night thanks to goals from Marquinhos and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and normal service had been restored, but the fact that it needed the eighth-best team in Ligue 1 to be reduced to 10 players before the European champions started to play should set alarm bells ringing for Luis Enrique.
A year ago, after sneaking into the playoffs following a late surge in the League Phase, PSG clicked into gear in the Champions League with a 10-0 aggregate thrashing of fellow French side Brest at this stage of the competition.
From that point on, PSG blew away every team that crossed their path. Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal were all knocked out by the French champions before they capped a sensational Champions League run by beating Internazionale 5-0 in the final in Munich.
Luis Enrique had built a team that was so exciting and carefree that it earned comparisons to the Barcelona side, including Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez and Neymar, that he guided to a Treble 10 years earlier.
Ousmane Dembele’s goalscoring performances would win him the Ballon d’Or, but Kvaratskhelia, Désiré Doué, João Neves, Vitinha, Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes also played hugely important roles in making PSG the best team on the planet.
Had they beaten Chelsea to win the FIFA Club World Cup in the final in New Jersey last July, PSG would have won everything they competed for in 2025.
But perhaps that energy-sapping month in the United States last summer took too heavy a toll on Luis Enrique’s squad. Some players had less than two weeks’ rest before playing, and beating, Tottenham Hotspur in the UEFA Super Cup in August.
Dembele has had his injury problems this season, as has Doue and Fabián Ruiz, and collectively, PSG look to be missing that extra ingredient that made them unbeatable last season.
They had a vibrancy throughout the team which is no longer there and that was evident against Monaco.
But maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise. PSG have failed to win 15 of the 38 games they have played in all competitions so far this season. Last season, they failed to win 17 of their 65 games, so the drop off is clear.
Fatigue, both physical and mental, would seem to be unavoidable considering PSG’s workload last year, but there is also the factor of having to win again.
Many teams find it difficult to “go again” after major success — look at Liverpool’s performances in the Premier League this season — and PSG were so dominant last season that it would be impossible to expect them to be just as good this time around. Yet although they have been unconvincing, the season is entering its decisive stage and PSG are still alive in the most important competition of them all.
Dembele and Ruiz are both one-to-two weeks away from fitness, so both could be back in time for the Round of 16 first leg against Chelsea or Barcelona.
If Luis Enrique can have those two back, he will have 10 of the players who won so much last season. The only absentee would be goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who moved to Manchester City following the signing of Lucas Chevalier.
So, the team is virtually the same and the big games are coming again.
But there is just a nagging feeling that PSG are running out of gas and the Round of 16 could be the end of the road.
Maybe the magic really has gone?