{"id":514257,"date":"2026-03-10T03:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T03:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/514257\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T03:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T03:49:10","slug":"luis-enriques-difficult-admission-hands-blues-champions-league-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/514257\/","title":{"rendered":"Luis Enrique’s ‘difficult’ admission hands Blues Champions League chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

PSG are at risk of back-to-back defeats when they face Chelsea in last-16 of the Champions League on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Luis Enrique’s side have home advantage at the Parc des Princes<\/a> for the first leg, before heading to London for the second leg next week.<\/p>\n

It’s been a challenging month or so for the current Champions League holders. Two wins and two defeats in Ligue 1 were paired with a play-off victory over Monaco to ensure PSG progressed into the knockout stages.<\/p>\n

They head into Wednesday’s tie against Chelsea<\/a> on the back of a 3-1 home league defeat to Monaco, reducing their advantage at the top of the French league to just one point.<\/p>\n

A setback has come at both the worst and perfect time. It dents their confidence, but gives PSG a golden opportunity to bounce back in emphatic fashion in Europe as they look to defeat the World Champions.<\/p>\n

Chelsea defeated PSG in last summer’s Club World Cup final, which denied Enrique’s side of holding the status of European and World Champions at the same time.<\/p>\n

\"Chelsea<\/p>\n

IMAGO \/ Eibner<\/p>\n

PSG’s defeat to Monaco at the Parc des Princes last Friday – they will hope – will not be damaging when it comes to the end of the season when deciding the outcome of the domestic winners.<\/p>\n

When speaking to L’Equipe<\/a>, Enrique conceded his team are in a ‘difficult situation’ after making many mistakes against Monaco.<\/p>\n

“We made mistakes, many mistakes, on the part of different players,” he admitted. “This is the key moment of the season, but it’s up to us to change that, to regain confidence. I want to be optimistic to try to find our level.”<\/p>\n

He added: “Clearly (it is a mental problem), when there are problems, it’s your head that disconnects first. That’s normal. It’s a strange, unpleasant feeling, but you have to remember that it’s only a match. <\/p>\n

\"Luis<\/p>\n

IMAGO \/ PRESSE SPORTS<\/p>\n

“You’re always looking for the key to understanding why you might mess things up, but there are many factors involved. <\/p>\n

“Confidence isn’t something you can buy at the supermarket; you have to build it day by day. We’re in a difficult situation, but we have to keep hoping that we can change that.”<\/p>\n

Chelsea will be hoping to pile further misery on PSG when they make the trip to France, with the reward for winning the two-legged tie against either Liverpool or Galatasaray in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

Liam Rosenior’s side have proven they can produce big performances and results when required, including against PSG last summer and Napoli in matchday eight to secure a top-eight finish. They will be desperate to land another big blow and a statement win in the French capital on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PSG are at risk of back-to-back defeats when they face Chelsea in last-16 of the Champions League on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-514257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}