In what has to be a troubling Champions League home victory for Real Madrid, Zinedine Zidane’s boys barely defeated visiting PSG 3-1 at the Bernabeu yesterday.
Insisting on playing his universally panned striker, Zidane again started Karim Benzema over both Gareth Bale and Asensio. The Frenchman began by missing an easy put away, had one nice left-footed shot parried away by Alphonse Areola, and then missed another two chances from close in.
As usual it was the 68th minute before Benzema was subbed out for Bale, and Lucas Vasquez and Asensio came in at the 79th for Casemiro and Isco respectively. Again, everyone but the Real coach witnessed Asensio’s assisting roles in both Cristiano Ronaldo’s second score and Marcelo’s closing goal. Similarly, Bale, who can create offensive danger all by himself, did so a handful of times in his 22 minutes when Benzema could not in his 68.
The match began even handed, and in truth with a PSG tilt, until Adrien Rabiot put the visitors ahead off a great team-play that saw Neymar back heel for an open Rabiot to blast home from close in. A deserved lead for PSG who had mostly kept their composure in a tough away match. Albeit Neymar picked up a yellow for lashing back at Nacho and six yellows were handed out. But for the most part referee Gianluca Rocchi (who weathered a point-blank Neymar blast to the face and missed a seeming Sergio Ramos hand ball in the Real box) managed the match well and treated the 78,158 in attendance to a scandal-free, entertaining game.
But in as much as Zidane chose poorly by playing Benzema, and in this match, an error-prone Nacho, PSG’s coach, Unai Emery, chose to play 21-year-old Argentine midfielder Giovanni Lo Celso and to bench team captain Thiago Silva, and he paid the higher price for both ill-advised choices.
The young Argentine committed several unnecessary fouls that put his team at risk and was called on the penalty on Toni Kroos that allowed Ronaldo to score the goal that brought the home side even. The two Real goals that followed were both scored from inside the center of the PSG box where Silva usually controls play.
In Rabiot’s goal, it was Nacho who both lost his mark (Neymar) and then decided to play goalie in front of his keeper in effect ensuring Rabiot’s shot was unseen by Keylor Navas until it was too late.
But the crux of the matter was that Real’s go-ahead goal was obtained off a deflected cross that yet found Ronaldo poaching with his knee for the score. The third Real goal was scored off a deflected Marcelo shot from close in. Ramos’s hand ball was a strike on the arm as he turned to face the PSG shooter, but it could easily have been called a penalty. One can safely assume all three pieces of good fortune for Real will not recur in Paris next month.
What Emery must have noticed was that Neymar and Kylian Mbappe both had the better of their markers on the wings, and that Edinson Cavani reached a number of balls, and just missed a couple of sure scores, because the Real Madrid central defenders could not keep up with him. Now, Dani Carvajal will return for the next encounter, complicating things a bit for PSG. But the fact remains that in this match a ball or two moving a few millimeters in a different direction and the score line could have been very different indeed. PSG is not trembling.
Zidane actually has the tougher second leg match to coach. That PSG’s score should have come from a midfielder should not be a comfort to Madrid, it simply showed that PSG has more than its golden trio. Similarly, if Zidane insists on Benzema, robbing his team of offensive clout, the French team will simply take advantage of what could translate into greater attacking opportunities when that is precisely what they need. One can only assume that the return leg will be a very different story and with a 2-0 win at home all PSG needs, Real are not quite in the driver’s seat in this match-up.
It will be as interesting to see if Emery capitalizes on what he witnessed yesterday as it will be to see what Zidane’s response will be to what he experienced.
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