Death, taxes and PSG bottling it in the Champions League

Carlo Garganese

• Updated: 9 Mar 2022 22:25 GMT
• 3 min read

Death, taxes and PSG bottling it in the Champions League

These are the three certainties in life.

And things were no different on Wednesday evening with regards to the latter as PSG somehow contrived to throw away a Champions League tie that they were completely in control of.

For 150 minutes of this last-16 affair, the Parisians were comfortably the better side – and by quite some distance.

Kylian Mbappe had run riot in both Paris and Madrid. He scored the winner in injury time at the Parc des Princes in a game in which they had 22 shots to five.

And he carried on where he left off at the Santiago Bernabeu. He made it 2-0 on aggregate after 38 minutes and had two more goals disallowed as PSG dominated.

Marco Verratti was bossing the midfield just as he had done in the first leg, while Neymar was linking up beautifully with Mbappe.

Madrid rarely looked like threatening, bar a long curling shot from Benzema which Benzema saved excellently in the first half.

But then, inexplicably, PSG completely collapsed just after the hour mark.

Donnarumma, who until then had been a commanding presence, made a terrible mistake in allowing Karim Benzema to close him down. Donnarumma’s kick was scuffed sideways – the referee ignoring his protests for a foul – and Vinicius Jr squared for Benzema to tap home.

PSG just needed to stay calm as they still led 2-1 in aggregate but they crumbled.

Every PSG player suddenly panicked in possession, giving away simple passes and allowing Madrid to launch wave after wave of attacks.

Neymar gifted the ball to Luka Modric – who in the first hour had been anonymous – and he would slip through a delightful through pass to Benzema to fire a deflected shot past Donnarumma.

It was now all level on aggregate – with the away goal rule scrapped by UEFA.

Less than 60 seconds later, Madrid would score again. They gave it away straight from the kick-off. Madrid attacked and Marquinhos then passed it straight across his own box – a schoolboy error – to allow Benzema to slot home the winner.

In the space of 17 minutes, Madrid scored three times to completely turn around the tie.

Tuesday was the fifth anniversary of the famous – or infamous – Remontada at Camp Nou. That night PSG threw away a 4-0 first leg lead in the last-16 against Barcelona to lose 6-1 in the return leg. These capitulations happen year after year after year.

Will PSG ever win this Champions League? Well, with Mbappe leaving and with this never-ending propensity to bottle seemingly unlosable ties, they are getting no closer to their dream.