PSG vs. Barcelona Results, Highlights, Scores: Why Barcelona Has Essentially Won Champions League Quarterfinal
Well, that was short.
Barcelona essentially ended its hotly anticipated match-up with Paris Saint-Germain by destroying the French side 3-1 in Paris.
After two hotly contested games in the group stage, many thought that PSG could put up a good battle with Luis Enrique's side. But alas, the Parisians lost more and more control of the game as it went alone and now face a tantamount task in Catalonia in the second leg. Win big or go home.
Here is what we learned from Barcelona's huge victory:
Luis Suarez the Hero
This is what a three-headed monster looks like.
In a game in which Lionel Messi was not at his best (albeit he got an assist and hit the bar on another chance), Suarez made up for it with a huge game including two terrific individual goals. On each one, he dribbled through David Luiz, making the hapless Brazilian defender look silly.
Suarez now has 15 goals in 2015 paired with six assists.
Injuries & Suspensions Kill PSG
No Thiago Motta. No Marco Verratti. No Serge Aurier. No Zlatan Ibrahimovic. And then no Thiago Silva.
Paris Saint-Germain entered the game with a bevy on injuries and many felt that the lack of depth on the bench would ultimately kill the team. And that it did. It looked dire from the get-go and only got worse when Silva went off early in the match.
Replacing him? An injured David Luiz, who, over the course of the match, would get bullied into submission by Luis Suarez and Barcelona's attack.
With Ibrahimovic, the team's attack was easily subdued by Barcelona's defense. Edinson Cavani was decent, but hardly impactful. Barcelona swarmed around him keeping him to the outside and not allowing him any major chances at goal. The same went for Ezequiel Lavezzi and Javier Pastore who made notable runs up the flanks but were kept to the outside. Any attempts at crossing into the heart of the box were met all too easily by Barcelona's defense.
The defense was sloppy and ultimately caved in in the second half with Luiz the scapegoat. Barcelona, which usually plays tiki taka in the offensive half, was finding it too easy to run and gun on the counter against an ill-prepared PSG side.
Any Hope?
The late own goal against Barcelona has left the tie at 3-1 with Paris needing a three-goal victory (3-0, 4-1, 5-2) at the Camp Nou to advance. The team surely did well against Chelsea in the last round but Barcelona has conceded three goals against just two times this year.
And neither of those matches was in Barcelona.
And neither was by three goals.
The first was a 3-2 defeat in Paris in the group stage and the other was a 3-1 decision in Madrid against Real Madrid. So, the likelihood of PSG pulling off the heist in the second leg is minimal, at best.
Of course, having Ibrahimovic and other major players back from suspension could turn the tide, but for now, PSG looks like it is heading homing in the quarterfinals for a third straight year.
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