Tag: Warren Zaire-Emery

Slumping PSG on the verge of another Champions League disappointment

PSG is looking at yet another early Champions League exit

What if Paris Saint-Germain added a fourth player who at some point was in the argument for the world’s best player? Would that work?

Something has to give for PSG, whose Champions League disappointments may well continue after they fell to a 1-0 home loss to Bayern Munich in their round of 16 first leg match on Tuesday.

Despite their many superstars, PSG have suddenly lost more games in the last six days than they had all season.

The latest defeat almost felt expected. With Kylian Mbappé only able to play 33 minutes off the bench, PSG looked flat from kickoff and seemed to be hoping to simply get through this first leg with a chance to take the tie with a second-leg win. They may have been lucky that Bayern decided to approach the match with patience rather than firing on all cylinders.

In the end, Kingsley Coman’s 53rd minute goal sneaked past Gianluigi Donnarumma, leaving PSG — even with Mbappé, Leo Messi, and Neymar all in the fold — staring at the massive disappointment of an early Champions League exit.

PSG has now lost three straight matches, falling 2-1 at Marseille in the Coupe de France on February 8, and then being beaten at Monaco 3-1 in Ligue 1 three days later. That hasn’t happened since 2020, when they fell in the final game of the 2019-2020 season and then lost their first two matches after the abbreviated break between seasons.

If they can’t figure out how to win at the Allianz Arena on March 8, it’ll be the latest European disappointment for a team built to, you know, win the Champions League.

Round of 16 exit not acceptable

Mbappé, Messi, and Neymar are joined by Donnarumma, Sergio Ramos, Achraf Hakimi, Fabián, Marco Verratti, and one of Europe’s great young prospects in Warren Zaïre-Emery in the kind of squad assembled when you expect to win everything. Another failure may result in Christophe Galtier becoming the latest high-profile manager to fall short at PSG, where winning Ligue 1 is considered a matter of course at this point.

The fact is, though, that PSG has a long history of not making it happen on the European stage. Their only trophy in UEFA competition remains the 1995-1996 Cup Winners’ Cup, a competition so old that it is literally defunct. The only other European adventure that went well for them was the 2001 Intertoto Cup, a competition that was really little more than an expanded qualification process for the old UEFA Cup.

Last year, PSG saw a 2-0 aggregate lead disappear at this same stage, with Karim Benzema scoring a hat trick in the final 30 minutes to send Real Madrid through instead. In 2020-21, PSG got as far as the semifinals, but were brushed aside by Manchester City. A year earlier, this same result — 1-0 against Bayern, with Coman scoring in the final of the pandemic-shortened version of that year’s Champions League (which was the first game in the aforementioned previous three-game losing streak for the club).

Mbappé’s second-half return from injury will probably mean a quick reversal in their overall form. Without the France star, they scraped out a 2-1 win over Toulouse before beginning this three-game losing streak. And sure enough, even looking less than 100%, the PSG attack suddenly found more space due to the threat of Mbappé’s runs in behind.

Still, while Mbappé’s return will most likely change PSG’s poor form in French play, it seems like it’ll take more than that to end whatever the hex is that hangs over them once the opening chords of the Champions League theme starts to ring out on matchday.

[lawrence-related id=13387,12093,14092]

Zaire-Emery, 16, becomes youngest player to start Champions League knockout game

The midfielder started alongside two players who debuted in the competition before he was born

Warren Zaïre-Emery made history on Tuesday, becoming the youngest player to ever start a Champions League knockout game.

The PSG midfielder started his side’s last-16 first leg at home against Bayern Munich, setting the record at 16 years, 343 days.

PSG also started Lionel Messi and Sergio Ramos in the same game, both of whom had already made their Champions League debuts when Zaïre-Emery was born on March 8, 2006.

Zaïre-Emery has been setting records all season, becoming the youngest player to make his Ligue 1 debut for PSG at 16 years, four months and 29 days when he came off the bench in the team’s Ligue 1 opener in August.

He also set the record for the youngest PSG starter in Ligue 1 when he was named in the team against Rennes in January.

The teenager then became the youngest goalscorer in the history of PSG when he scored against Montpellier this month.

ESPN FC recounted a story Vitinha told his agent Jorge Mendes upon arriving at the club last summer.

“Who is this kid that you got in your team? He is an alien!” he said after training with Zaïre-Emery, who is also represented by Mendes.

The PSG academy product has now made 15 appearances for the first team this season. He has also represented France at various youth levels, most recently featuring with the U-19s.

[lawrence-related id=13387,12093,11730]