Messi was finally teamed up with Neymar and Mbappe against Club Brugge in UCL, but the French giants could only escape with a pretty dismal 1-1 draw.<\/p>\n
Expectedly, the reaction in France to the Paris Saint-Germain’s all-star revue in their Champions League bow against Club Brugge in mid-week has been unforgiving, to say the least.<\/p>\n
PSG, football’s new galacticos following the epochal arrival of Lionel Messi from Barcelona, were unceremoniously dismissed as “ghost-like” by sports daily L’Equipe as they barely managed to escape greater embarrassment with a 1-1 draw against the Belgian champions on what was the Argentine’s first full start for his new club.<\/p>\n
Messi teamed up with Kylian Mbappe and Neymar for the first time but, as Le Parisien put it, “the dream of seeing the ‘MNM’ together almost turned into a nightmare”.<\/p>\n
A draw away to the supposedly weakest team in their Champions League group puts Mauricio Pochettino’s side – among the leading pre-tournament favorites to win European club football’s biggest prize – up against it just to reach the last 16. They play Manchester City next and still have to face RB Leipzig, two teams that beat PSG in last season’s Champions League.<\/p>\n
The game in Bruges served as a grim reminder that Pochettino cannot just rest the club’s hopes all on just Messi, Neymar and Mbappe to win games, even if the latter set up the goal for Ander Herrera. It’s clear they desperately missed the suspended Idrissa Gana Gueye and the injured Marco Verratti in midfield.<\/p>\n
Angel di Maria, a regular Messi aide and accomplice-in-crime in their Argentina escapades, was sorely missed due to his suspension. At the back, defender extraordinaire Sergio Ramos has still not stirred a muscle because of injury.<\/p>\n
“We must improve, we know that,” said Pochettino.<\/p>\n
“We have a magnificent squad, but we need balance, to be creative going forward but solid at the back. We need time for that.”<\/p>\n
It is concerning especially when compared with Pep Guardiola’s City, who emphatically trounced Leipzig 6-3 in midweek and will head for Paris later this month.<\/p>\n
By then, the good news would be that Messi would have had at least three more matches to get used to his new team-mates, starting with Sunday’s home engagement with Lyon, PSG’s biggest Ligue 1 test yet.<\/p>\n
PSG have a 100 percent record so far in Ligue 1 with 16 goals in their five outings but now face an in-form Lyon side that overcame Rangers 2-0 in Glasgow in the Europa League on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"