CL R16: Real Madrid - Paris Saint Germain

I don't think he's dumb enough to make the same mistakes in the return leg. Expect a different and stronger lineup in the return leg.

Seriously, this tie is far, far from over, especially with their away goal. But let's be honest, the team played very well in the second half to bounce back. Not to mention that the subs Zidane made were spot on and helped us a lot.

I didn't know there was a manager in UCL that'd make Zidane look like a tactical genius

sportsczy wrote:Defensively, PSG are a wreck. No heart. Lo Celso as the holding mid was doomed for failure too.

To boot, you bring on Meunier and the most in-form player, Di Maria, is left on the bench. Not to mention taking out the only true 9 on the team in Cavani.

Emery is horrible.

I knew we could do it. Told y all.

My initial pessimism turned to optimism, as soon as I saw their official team sheet. God knows, why he didn't bring on Di Maria. I feared he would cause us some trouble.

halamadrid2 wrote:Emery didn't even use all 3 subs

Emery literally out-Zidane Zidane with his subs. But all self banter aside, Zizou did extremely well with his own subs but I still think we should have gone with a proper 4-4-2 with wingers from the very start.

Scoreline flattered us, we got lucky, Ronaldo with that Sagat inspired tigerknee finish, doesn't matter. Everyone thought we were gonna get roflstomped by PSG at home, including most of us and we won. Fair and square. Great damn win.

If Emery told neymar and di Maria to dribble at our defense for 90mins they can probably score 5 goals. Hoping emery over thinks himself in the second leg again

this imo had nothing to do with emery, the game was very open, sometimes way too open for my liking. maybe emery could have opted for a more defensive approach, but it was an open game, psg played well, but ramos in particular imo was having none of it, and even then psg had some near chances. but i get it, managers get all the praise and all the blame i guess, even though they're not on the pitch. cavani had a near chance that could have turned things

i was happy about how we played even though it was like we where a man down, (Don't worry, i'm not going to mention who didn't play well). we had space to do things and asensi just flipped the script. was very happy today, i don't like that we conceded but when you're not so confident going in, you'll take a win anyday, especially when the match itself was entertaining....sometimes too entertaining for my liking (but i don't want to talk about defense today)

i also have to mention good subs from zidane too, had to throw that out there. i hope we don't get too excited in the second leg

@tito... if you watch PSG, you know Emery screwed up.  It's like Mou suddenly trying to show he's a genius and putting a starting 11 that never played together.  This starting 11 for PSG had literally never played together until this game.

Di Maria has also CLEARLY been PSG's best player since the start of the calendar year.

Not to mention Thiago Silva is PSG's best CB and he was benched as well.

Add the strange subs and Di Maria never coming in + not using all 3 subs. I mean think about... Meunier is a horrible defender. Lacks pace. Yet you bring him in when Asensio and Bale come on? Wow.

Just strange all around.  Great for us though.

From what I've seen of Kimpembe, he's not quite the finished product and he clearly lacks experience. Granted, he played when PSG dominated Barca in the first leg of their CL clash last season. I know many people on here don't rate Thiago Silva, but he and Motta were sorely missed today - which is fantastic, but the former's absence is really odd considering the importance of the match. Mbappe's underwhelming performance was a bit suprising, but I suppose that's to be expected from a 19 year old playing against his favorite, foreign club for the first time. Speaking of first times, what a horrible champions league debut for Lo Celso

I have no idea why Di Maria didn't start. Sports is correct, he has been their most in form player since January. Him in the central midfield would have caused us so much issues. And yet, Emery decides to bench him. What a strange man, was always weird in La Liga and I see he is continuing his weirdness in France.

Lo Celso is an attacking mid!!! never played holding mid in his life... yet Emery decided to give him a try there for the first time in a CL knockout game at the Bernabeu!

Just strange. Besides the referees, I wonder if Emery is also secretly on the Real Madrid payroll for this one.

Perez's powers stretch even to managers now. Damn.

He has power over UEFA, there are no limits when it comes to Perez

yeah i haven't watched psg nor ligue un this season besides highlights. i just thought based on the game alone could have gone either way. i hope they all of a sudden psg don't start feeling tough in the second leg; now this was a good confidence booster for the lads

we played a fairly average game, but we were very efficient scoring. it's been that way in CL in the past season but this team is clearly in doubt compared to last year. we will see if we go to the next round

I too think we got lucky. We were even with them and most of our chances came from pressing them while in position not by actually creating chances, except for Ronaldos one on one.

Isco's performance

Isco started fantastic, first 20 minutes were almost Thiago-esque.
Got more and more irrelevant though and his substitution was vital in your last 20 minutes push.

Marcelo was an irresistible whirlwind and force all over the pitch, some unbelievable stuff.
Sometimes I have to wonder about formational discipline though when the left back pops up in a right winger position and such.

Kroos was ok.

Casemiro was poor.

Modric was immense, but that's nothing special for him.
Should be considered one of the greatest players of the last decade.
He's got to do the work of 2 midfielders and 2 attackers put together, and then he manages to be the creative hub on top of that.

Not particularly because of yesterday, when he was okayish, but I do owe Nacho an apology for calling him a terrible player with no future many times. He seems to have stepped up and is a very good player.

Varane was good as well.

You ain't the first person to call Nacho a terrible player there Hans. It's a normal opinion till one sees he really isn't. Could use both feet pretty well, solid enough (would get beaten by obviously more talented footballers), actually listens to tactical instructions and can play across the backline. Good utility player and quite frankly, a good defender.

I think we all appreciate what Nacho provides, within the confinement of what he's able to provide. He's mostly a very solid and reliable player, and I don't believe he's ever complained about being used as some sort of O'Shea/utility type of player who only ever starts when the team suffers from substantial injury troubles. His shortcomings have, on occasion, become very apparent against the top sides in football, but I think that's fine considering he isn't the type of player you'd ideally start against the Bayerns and Barcas. I can't think of any other player who's as solid as him, and doesn't have high demands regarding playing time. Any team in football benefits from such players, who provide reliable backup without putting pressure on the coach to move up in the pecking order.

Just reading and curious mainly about Emery why he started players with basically no CL experience as Sport said? That DM guy Lo Celso whatever, as soon as I saw the lineup I was like wtf is this? And surely he was poor, so was their defense. Not an expert on Emery but his record is good, its not like he has no idea, but man if this is all true, he really fuked up on this one.

Doc wrote:You ain't the first person to call Nacho a terrible player there Hans. It's a normal opinion till one sees he really isn't. Could use both feet pretty well, solid enough (would get beaten by obviously more talented footballers), actually listens to tactical instructions and can play across the backline. Good utility player and quite frankly, a good defender.

I didn't make my opinion up out of thin air though. I saw him have a number of abysmal showings when he had to be played in earlier seasons, and concluded he hasn't what it takes.

Granted I'm quick to pull the trigger vs Real youngsters when I've seen 20-30 minutes of them but I'm usually right

I wasn't here.

Hans... it's position. Nacho typically does well at fullback and gets exposed as a mediocre CB.

I used to be one of Nacho's harshest critics, but after watching him as long as I have now, it's impossible for me to criticize him now.

He is a backup player who doesn't have the luxury of playing consistently, yet he comes in and does a job, and since last season/2 seasons ago 9 times out of 10 he has outperformed our starters. And he seems happy to play the rotation utility role, haven't seen him complain once, yet he could definitely start at other la liga teams.

He may not have had the best game yesterday, but it was against one of the most dangerous players in the game. I can understand that.