Paris Saint-Germain – Liverpool: Late Looting In Lucho’s Lair (0-1)
This was not the game we had expected. Paris Saint-Germain had dictated proceedings throughout their first-leg clash with Liverpool, yet Alisson Becker inflicted his own dominance between the posts. With minutes left, Liverpool found the winner for the definitive “smash-and-grab” victory.
Tactical analysis and match report by Joel Parker.
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Even when two elite teams meet in the Champions League, there is no guarantee that those sides will be in elite form going into it. Yet this was an exception; by building significant leads in their respective leagues, both PSG and Liverpool could be destined for a deep European run, but only one would walk on this path.
By eliminating the superstardom out of their transfer policy, PSG find themselves with a very young team but one that is both more balanced and more flexible on the field. Their run in the league phase did see them dance with elimination, yet Luis Enrique’s team entered a form that had seen them unbeaten in twenty-two games, thirteen points on top of Ligue 1 and brutalized fellow Frenchmen Stade Brestois 10-0 on aggregate, in the last round of fixtures. Enrique has got PSG in a much healthier state, but will the knockout curse linger back into action?
Liverpool finished on top of the standings in the league phase and look certain to match their accomplishment in the Premier League too. Arne Slot has set his team on cruise control in their last two matches, with a settled structure that has seen a lot more patience in their play, although this is a team that has maintained a lot of its tools within its attack. One of these is Mohamed Salah, who has gained another level and how PSG were going to combat this threat would be crucial towards who was going to progress. Tactically, these are two teams with few flaws but not willing to move into a risk-averse game. Just the type of matchups the neutral hopes for.
PSG have raised their ceiling under Enrique in quite an unconventional way, no player in the front six is entirely settled in their buildup positions but all are capable of interchanging. From the win against Lille, they made three chances. Willian Pacho came back into the defense, whilst Vitinha was reintroduced to the midfield. In the attack, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia joined Bradley Barcola and Ousmane Dembélé.
Liverpool have benefitted by keeping their squad rotations to a minimum. From their 2-0 win over Newcastle United last week, Slot made just a single change at left-back, Konstantinos Tsimikas was replaced by Andrew Robertson.
Trying to play your game
It is no secret that Liverpool can switch to an ultra-direct game if they want to, perhaps the undoing of Jürgen Klopp’s dominance to a certain extent (a strong asset leading to an overreliance) and Slot finetuning such states to make Liverpool more effective. Already, Liverpool where willing to launch early channel passes into Salah and Luis Díaz, but the willingness to play directly was even more aggressive than that.
Kick-offs from Alisson Becker went long and they did not even engage in a lengthy deep buildup to try and engineer transitions from that angle. Slot’s team aimed high up the field and tried to profit from the second ball, but PSG where well prepared in this manner; both in the dual and the security of the back three (Nuno Mendes and the two center-backs) offered a quick route to pass back too. As a result, the possession was firmly in PSG’s court. Changes in game state were still in progress but Enrique’s team did not lose their grip in terms of the control they had on the ball.
Liverpool’s start to the game lingered of an old Klopp rerun – pressing in a narrow 4-3-3 formation with the ball-sided fullback stepping high up the field to congest the area. However, they would not maintain efforts to press too high for long periods and the constant rotations of the two Portuguese midfielders came into play. As one of João Neves or Vitinha dropped, the other pushed high further up the chain and both players could take up multiple positions across the middle third.
9th minute: Central rotation from PSG. As Neves carried the ball from right to left, Jota followed and the right side of the Liverpool block tilted. As Neves had moved laterally, Vitinha moved up the chain, only to drop back into a position where Mendes could pass without Liverpool being able to jump onto the midfielder. As Vitinha received, movements on the left stopped the opposition from resetting in the center and Vitinha carried to force Díaz into the center and the passing lane was open to Hakimi.
In possession, this was PSG in their usual arrangements under Enrique: a back three would be made with Mendes tucking with the center-backs, or one of the pivot players dropping into it. Meanwhile, the wide pinning roles started with Barcola and Achraf Hakimi, but any one of the PSG forwards could enter this task as the center rotated. In Liverpool’s 4-3-3 formation, which moved into a tilted 4-2-3-1 shape through Dominik Szoboszlai, PSG got early access to Dembélé as he dropped into wide-left spots as the constant rotation from the double pivot resulted in Diogo Jota being very inactive out of possession. The hosts were not moving inside the Liverpool block for now, but soon the momentum gathered would start to see PSG enter into much better positions.
Twelve shots to one
Once PSG had more phases of settled possession, chances started to flow for Enrique’s team. The wide pinning and multi-positional set-up from the Spaniard had laid the foundations for any one of PSG’s forwards to collect and dribble, but it still required a phenomenal amount of technical skill to generate attacks when they carried. With Neves, Vitinha and Fabián Ruiz all manoeuvring (both laterally and into different lines) alongside a back three on the halfway line, PSG was capable of circulating/switching from one side of the field to the other. On the right side, Marquinhos was jumped on by Díaz and Robertson shot out onto Dembélé. The Frenchman created the game’s first big opportunity from this point, dribbling into the box and his cutback found Neves but he would put the ball over the crossbar.
The hosts would have the ball in the back of the net at one point. From a corner’s second phase, Vitinha cooly passed to Kvaratskhelia, who dropped back into position. His curved shot into the far corner was magnificent, but the timing of his run back onside was slightly off. Minutes later, a huge red card call was checked when Pacho’s long ball found Barcola but Ibrahima Konaté brought the winger down. Two events that could have slowed down PSG’s momentum, but the best chances were yet to come.
28th minute: Buildup to Kvaratskhelia shot. As PSG circulated, Vitinha was able to thread a pass into Barcola, positioned in the halfspace. Despite Liverpool jumping onto him, Barcola’s dribble inside beat the pressing trigger and forced Mac Allister to shift over. As he did so, Kvaratskhelia found himself free inside of the block.
These attacks stemmed from PSG’s ability to eliminate Liverpool’s first line through their rotations (which stopped them from putting pressure on the ball as a result) before finding one of the attackers in the halfspace. Vitinha and Neves were responsible for these line-splitting passes and the influence of the front three grew as all three were capable of receiving the ball in very different situations. Just before the half-hour mark, PSG produced their best opportunities as Barcola skipped past Trent Alexander-Arnold on the transition. With the center-backs on different levels, Virgil van Dijk moved back to cover the center but left Dembélé completely free in the process. Alisson made a textbook save on the one-versus-one, although the danger was not cleared. Barcola had two attempts with the goalkeeper not reset and three Liverpool defenders guarding the goal, but the winger could only see his first shot being blocked before the second sailed over the crossbar.
As the first half continued, the Liverpool block started to look more distorted as both Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister had to drop deeper when PSG where in possession. This was particularly prevalent on the left side of the defense because Kvaratskhelia had already made runs in behind Mac Allister when Robertson jumped to engage with Hakimi. Ruiz could also move into positions where PSG doubled up in their right halfspace and the spaces stretched with Kvaratskhelia moving behind Robertson and Ruiz showing for the ball as Marquinhos moved it to Hakimi.
38th minute: Liverpool forced to defend with a back five. As PSG circulated towards the right, Díaz jumped onto Marquinhos and Robertson moved up the chain towards Hakimi, but as PSG had already opened up the inside on a couple of occasions, Mac Allister dropped into the defensive line to stop Dembélé becoming free.
Doubling up was key for the technical attackers to exploit space further, especially as Liverpool’s defensive line has traditionally backpedalled more than most teams to limit as much space to shoot as possible. After counterpressing on a Liverpool turnover, Neves passed to Kvaratskhelia with Barcola both on the outer channel. The Georgian still skipped through the defense before his near post effort was saved again by Alisson. Twelve first-half shots to one, with Liverpool forced to 71% passing accuracy in that period.
Transitions start to emerge
As space grew between Liverpool’s first line of pressure and the defense, PSG entered into more transitional scenarios. From deeper areas, this saw some more carries out from PSG and the more frantic game state did not benefit their chance creation. In return, Liverpool’s long balls forward were bound to find some connectivity, but Marquinhos, Pacho and Mendes had effectively put out fires when the pass behind the last line was made.
Despite being the team taking the shots, PSG had started to lose some of the synergies that they had established in the buildup now that the sequences had become shorter to get around the box. Alisson proved monumental once more, saving a sharp free-kick from Kvaratskhelia as well as another ranged attempt after the winger had cut inside from the left. The game may have entered counterattacking phases before the hour mark, but Liverpool where still committing a lot of players to the defense.
This would affect the quality of Liverpool’s transitional prospects. These counters started from very deep positions and although Szoboszlai found breaks through the center, a pass out wide could kill the moves as PSG where quick to reset on the ball side, which made the next pass difficult to connect. With less action in the middle third, PSG lost creative control and the quality of the chances would slow down as the game moved from Liverpool’s low blocking to having possession close to the opposite goal.
After some big chances in the first half, PSG still kept up with the shot count but to much less quality in the seoncd period.
The job is complete
It took until after the hour mark for the first substitutions to appear. Enrique turned to Désiré Doué in place of Barcola, whilst Slot made a double change: Jota was replaced by Darwin Núñez and Díaz for Curtis Jones. In the process, Jones offered more support to Robertson by following the runner on the outside between situations, whereas Doué joined the attacking rotations.
The game had moved more into PSG’s control by this point, but their ability to smoothly connect through the lines had left and more of the U-shaped circulation came out, that teams of Enrique can fall into. This was worsened when Ruiz and Kvaratskhelia were taken off in the last quarter, replaced by Warren Zaïre-Emery and Gonçalo Ramos. Shooting in the box proved a difficult task for the French side in the second half, but Alisson would be forced into action again when Doué’s powerful shot seemed destined for the far corner. A few minutes later, it was a low, whipped ball from Dembélé that needed intervention (in fact, it was most of these crosses that PSG had produced in the second period.)
From that point, it looked like PSG could play another ninety minutes without scoring, but they would be dealt with one significant blow towards the end. Seconds after Salah was taken off, Alisson pumped a long pass high up the pitch and after the duel, Núñez had control with PSG defenders swarmed around him. Charging through on the right side was Salah’s replacement, Harvey Elliott, who opened his body and hit a low shot, too much for Gianluigi Donnarumma to handle. From their first shot on target, and their second in the game, Liverpool had found the winner that PSG could not find from their twenty-seven attempts.
Takeaways
A timeless piece for the football narrative. Despite being a sport that is low in scoring and high in variables, it is still the scoreline that is the basis of the conversation. PSG should have won this game. Although the second half saw a step down in the quality of chances, it still required Alisson to go supernova to stop some excellent attempts at goal.
A 1-0 scoreline is more than salvageable, but how does Enrique keep the momentum firmly in his court and not play to Liverpool’s means?
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