{"id":809228,"date":"2026-10-21T02:32:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T02:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809228\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T02:32:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T02:32:15","slug":"doue-and-vitinha-burn-bright-as-brittle-barcelona-come-unstuck-against-psg-champions-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809228\/","title":{"rendered":"Dou\u00e9 and Vitinha burn bright as brittle Barcelona come unstuck against PSG | Champions League"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fire, noise, fury, a sense of empty energy. And across town, a football match too. Do any of these randomly pitched autumnal Champions League fixtures mean anything? Probably not when you\u2019re Paris Saint-Germain<\/a> and Barcelona, and the only game in town is risk-free TV income and a semi-guaranteed place in the knockout stuff.<\/p>\n

But this was still a dazzling occasion at the Parc des Princes, where the champions of France and Spain played out a light, open, frictionless, exhibition-style game of football. PSG finished 4-2 winners, having been pegged back to 2-2 midway through the second half. But this was also a game where the score almost did not seem to matter, and where the only really hard message was the frailty of the Barcelona<\/a> backline and PSG\u2019s thrilling attacking energy in these midweek A-games.<\/p>\n

\u201cDebris! Debris! DEBRIS!\u201d the insanely loud PA announcer screamed into his mic before kick-off, in what appeared to be a poor-taste tribute to the current state of the nation\u2019s capital, although it may also have been \u201cdu bruit\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the hours leading up to this game France\u2019s interior minister had specifically ruled out postponing the whole thing due to the ongoing state of civil unrest, the kind of statement that is no doubt intended to sound reassuring, but which also generates its own kind of whiplash.<\/p>\n

Paris is burning. Paris is always burning. No, but Paris really is burning this time<\/a>. The main site of the violence of the last few days is three miles east of the Parc, which lurks by the ring road in one of Paris\u2019s slightly n\u00e9glig\u00e9 inner quarters, rising up like a vast concrete alien doughnut in between the townhouses.<\/p>\n

On matchday it required a degree of cognitive dissonance to take in these two opposing spectacles. On one hand the piles of charred bikes and the mass looting which has, in reassuringly Parisian style, seemed to focus on elite high-fashion brands. Chanel will rue the day.<\/p>\n

In the middle of which Paris also hosted this glittering treat of a football match, stuffed with so many throwaway little delicacies, like an elite artisan patisserie. Before kick-off there were leaping tongues of flame, a laser show spectacular, and a vast tifo at one end showing a ghoulish PSG serial killer type attacking the Barcelona badge with his blood-soaked chainsaw. The message here seemed to be: we are confident. We believe in our process. And we will hack you to death.<\/p>\n

D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Dou\u00e9 strikes to give PSG the lead in the first half. Photograph: Julien de Rosa\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

From the start this was a high-grade, disarmingly open game. For Hansi Flick\u2019s Barcelona it represented a genuine test of method. Here we have an elite team that plays with a studied disregard for some of the tenets of positional defensive play. We will press forward and trust what lies behind. We will also give up on the basic idea of marking pretty much from the kick-off, as it turned out.<\/p>\n

With one minute gone PSG should have scored. A quick diagonal passing move from right to left put Khvicha Kvaratskhelia in space. His shot pinged off a post and back to an offside Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9, who shinned wide of an open goal.<\/p>\n

There was a fury to PSG in those opening minutes, the front players finding angles and free channels. Pedri and Marc Bernal in central midfield took a while to settle for Bar\u00e7a. Bernal is pure La Masia, a baby-faced 19-year-old Catalan, misleadingly so, as he also has the physique of a rugby union flanker. And Pedri is of course the kind of footballer who glides through these occasions, so casual you half expect to look down and notice he\u2019s playing in flip-flops and holding a Calippo.<\/p>\n

Before long Barcelona were making chances of their own, Dani Olmo setting off on a couple of surging deep runs, Anthony Gordon almost getting on the end of a cutback.<\/p>\n

Jo\u00e3o Cancelo was booked with 16 minutes gone for a lunge on D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Dou\u00e9, a disastrous state of affairs for any full-back faced with this nightmare of feints and fast-twitch feet. And two minutes later Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 was off, injured chasing the ball, replaced by Ferran Torres. Maybe he should play a bit more, get match fit.<\/p>\n

Xavi Espart scores his first Champions League goal to equalise for Barcelona at 1-1. Photograph: David Ramos\/Uefa\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Still the game just zinged from end to end. Raphinha had a close-range shot blocked by Matvey Safonov after a nice pass from Gordon. PSG had three shots blocked or saved in the space of six seconds on 28 minutes, Joan Garc\u00eda saving brilliantly low down.<\/p>\n

And on 38 minutes PSG deservedly took the lead. The goal was in keeping with the game, expertly hi-tech but also strangely easy and open. Lamine Yamal essayed an ambitious chipped clearance. Jo\u00e3o Neves took the ball back. It fell to Dou\u00e9, and he had time to jink inside, feel the space around him, and shoot low inside the post.<\/p>\n

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PSG were bossing this by now, Kvaratskhelia running up and down the gears on the left, such a beautifully inventive presence, socks crumpled down around his ankles, all mooching straggly menace, as though the base player from Shed Seven has reinvented himself as a state of the art elite European inside forward.<\/p>\n

By the break Barcelona were hanging on, overrun in midfield. And the second half was more of the same: mobile, relentless, high-grade product, lovely attacking interchanges, occasional large spaces in the Barcelona backline.<\/p>\n

Dou\u00e9 forced another fine close-range save, played in by Vitinha. On 55 minutes Barcelona equalised, Xavi Espart galloping through the left side of the PSG defence and smashing a shot into the net off the hands of Safonov. The PA announcer gave the goal to Lamine Yamal, because, well, great branding. But it was Espart\u2019s first in Europe, the second of his career. He\u2019s 19, hyper-versatile, another dreamy Catalan youth-teamer.<\/p>\n

Bar\u00e7a brought on Rodri, absent from the starting XI, Flick admitted afterwards, solely with the weekend\u2019s cl\u00e1sico in mind. For a while order was restored, Rodri strolling around like the only grownup on the pitch.<\/p>\n

Vitinha fires in from the edge of the box as PSG retake the lead late on. Photograph: Dave Winter\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

But PSG always have tools to hurt you. Dou\u00e9 sliced open the right side again and crossed for Fabi\u00e1n Ruiz to hit the post from six yards out. From the corner Lucas Hernandez had the space to leap and produce a wonderful finish, thumped off the meaty part of the forehead high into the top corner.<\/p>\n

Seven minutes later it was 2-2. This was a strange goal, scored by Lamine Yamal after a wonderful run in from the right and a lofted near-post finish that in the moment either looked like a mistake from Safonov or a moment of pure invention.<\/p>\n

Two minutes after that it was 3-2 to PSG as the game kept on running to its own speed, this time a controlled first-time shot from Vitinha, seizing on a bouncing ball near the edge of the box. Ruiz added a fourth four minutes from the end.<\/p>\n

The game against Lyon at the weekend will mitigate against the usual round of rotations, and injuries did begin to bite a little here. But PSG still finished like a machine built for these occasions, operating always with strength in reserve, and quite clearly the most potent midweek team in Europe once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fire, noise, fury, a sense of empty energy. And across town, a football match too. Do any of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-809228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}