Goals
Aston Villa:
Paris Saint-Germain: Achraf Hakimi (11’)
Competition: UEFA Champions League
Kickoff: 19:00+UTC
Venue: Villa Park - Birmingham England
Head referee: José María Sánchez Martínez
Aston Villa form [old → recent]: ✅️✅️✅️❌️✅️
Paris Saint-Germain form [old → recent]: ✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️
Head to head [recent → old]: (AVL-PSG): 1-3
Lineups
Aston Villa 4-2-3-1:
Emiliano Martínez(23) - Pau Torres(14) - Ezri Konsa(4) - Lucas Digne(12) - Matty Cash(2) - Youri Tielemans(8) - Amadou Onana(24) - Boubacar Kamara(44) - Marcus Rashford(9) - John McGinn(7) - Morgan Rogers(27)
Bench: Axel Disasi - Lamare Bogarde - Ian Maatsen - Marco Asensio - Leon Bailey - Jacob Ramsey - Tyrone Mings - Ollie Watkins - Ross Barkley - Robin Olsen - Sam Proctor
Paris Saint-Germain 4-3-3:
Gianluigi Donnarumma(1) - Willian Pacho(51) - Marquinhos (5) - Nuno Mendes(25) - Achraf Hakimi(2)⚽️ - Vitinha (17) - Fabián Ruiz(8) - João Neves(87) - Ousmane Dembélé(10) - Khvicha Kvaratskhelia(7) - Bradley Barcola(29)
Bench: Senny Mayulu - Désiré Doué - Arnau Tenas - Gonçalo Ramos - Presnel Kimpembe - Lee Kang-in - Ibrahim Mbaye - Warren Zaïre-Emery - Lucas Beraldo - Matvei Safonov - Lucas Hernández
Match Stats
Possession: 42%🟩🟩🟩🟩🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴58%
Shots On Goal: 0 - 1
Shots Attempted: 1 - 1
Fouls: 2 - 0
Yellow Cards: 0 - 0
Red Cards: 0 - 0
Corners: 2 - 0
Saves: 0 - 0
Match Events
Lineups are announced and players are warming up.
First Half begins.
2' - Corner, Aston Villa. Conceded by Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
2' - Attempt blocked. Youri Tielemans (Aston Villa) header from a difficult angle on the left is blocked. Assisted by Marcus Rashford with a cross.
2' - Corner, Aston Villa. Conceded by João Neves.
4' - Foul by John McGinn (Aston Villa).
4' - Willian Pacho (Paris Saint Germain) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
4' - Foul by Lucas Digne (Aston Villa).
4' - Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Paris Saint Germain) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
11' - ⚽️ Goal! Aston Villa 0, Paris Saint Germain 1. Achraf Hakimi (Paris Saint Germain) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the top left corner following a fast break.
Generated by lemmy-match-thread-bot
It is not like the best team always wins the UCL. There 3 instances since La decima (La Decima year included) where Real Madrid has won the UCL without even being the best team in Spain. Even Bayern during the treble year in 2012-13, the year when they trashed Barcelona 7-0 on aggregate and also best juventus 4-0 on aggregate, barely scrapped past Arsenal on the away goals rule.
Stylistic mismatches happen, luck happens, key players being out happens, all contributes to one or two out of form results, but PSG were frankly a bit shit at the start of the tournament losing three matches and finishing 15th. I still think haven’t fixed their fundamental issues about controlling and killing a match off, which with all the ridiculous hype of “Best Team” since beating a stunted Liverpool on penalties is symptomatic of football journalism. Its not like PSG play in a properly competitive league, at least the Spanish and Italian Leagues make a decent attempts at the race most seasons.
Its similar to the almost complete write off of Real and how wonderful Arsenal are now, having magicked a free kick specialist out of Rice. It wasn’t that long ago their bottling in the Premier League was resulting in Arteta being talked up for the sack, yet one good result against a big name team and its all sunshine and roses. While its unlikely that Real will come back and win, they are still a very good side, and I am sure nobody thought Villa or Dortmund would rally and make a decent attempt of being behind by a big margin. Real are a better team than both of them, even as poor as they can be this season and to completely write them off is super foolish. If Arteta manages to lose over the two legs is he now a terrible manager again and should be sacked immediately?
Winning two legged cup ties are a very different beast to winning your native league, especially at the sharp end of something like the Champions League. Being used to the pressure, the different tactics is an important skill. Plus having players that can step it up for those matches rather than just grind out results against weak opposition week in week out in your home league, is very important. Not going in a complete flap as the PSG defense did for a mad 15 minutes second half is equally important skill and pretty essential if you want the best team label to actually mean something.
The fact is the ‘best team’ or at least a team in contention to be the best does not need be great team - they just have to be better than the other teams.
Both PSG and Barcelona are not perfect and have some serious issues with their defences. Madrid and bayern are also struggling at the back because injuries have meant they aren’t able to control games. Arsenal have been pretty poor going forward. Inter is probably the most balanced side and are underrated because they aren’t exceptional at any one facet of their play.
While you make some good arguments as to why PSG cannot be considered as one of the best teams, considering current form, only PSG, Barca and Inter are candidates for that accolade and you will journalists make arguments for each of them