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This has long been a problem for PSG–as it is for Bayern Munich and, to a lesser extent, Juventus and Barcelona and Real Madrid. They are so dominant domestically that the game becomes all about attacking. Neymar’s performance against Toulouse on his home debut, when PSG won 6-2, was a carnival as he scored two and performed trick after trick, like a teenager showing off in a kickabout with his little brother’s mates.
That’s all very well against a mid-table Ligue 1 side, but PSG cannot expect to play that kind of football against Bayern, whom they’ll meet in the Champions League group stage, and perhaps not even against Celtic or Anderlecht, its other two opponents.
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Even accepting the power of a front line that can play three from Neymar, Mbappe, Cavani and Di Maria, that may not be enough. Although Barcelona won the Champions league with the Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez forward line, it never hit the same heights as it had with Pep Guardiola’s more integrated side. And that’s always the problem with a galactico model: it leads to individuality and to the team playing in blocks rather than as an integrated whole.
That may be great for marketing, it may produce great highlights reels from the French league and it may even, given the structure of the competition, land the Champions League at last, but it is not the inter-related, mutually multiplicatory whole that perhaps should be the aim of the very best sides.
Source link : https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/09/08/psg-neymar-kylian-mbappe-champions-league-france
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Publish date : 2017-09-08 07:00:00
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