As Paris St-Germain comfortably defeated Real Sociedad in their Champions League round of 16 match, Kylian Mbappe marked his comeback from injury with a goal.
Prior to Mbappe’s dramatic late-night strike, the French champions had a dismal record in the competition.
Mbappe scored following a corner at the back post after missing his team’s prior game due to an ankle injury.
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With a stunning finish that went past Alex Remiro, Bradley Barcola scored the second.
Before, Mbappe missed a second chance after tipping his effort into the crossbar, which was saved by Real Sociedad custodian Remiro.
Mikel Merino of Real Sociedad struck the crossbar shortly before halftime, and PSG—who have never won the Champions League—were far from at their best in the first half.
PSG manager Luis Enrique told TNT Sports, “I would be dancing for two hours if you told me at halftime we would win 2-0.”
They were putting a lot of pressure on us, so we had to alter everything. It felt like a nightmare, and we were unable to press.
“You will lose confidence when that occurs, but football is amazing, so we can change that.” It was more along our lines in the latter half.”
In the rematch on March 5 in Spain, Real Sociedad will believe they can win, but they will need to provide a much more offensive threat than they did in Paris.
Despite spending enormous quantities of money on salaries and transfer fees in recent years, PSG, which is controlled by Qatar, has failed to go past the round of 16 in the Champions League five times in the last seven seasons.
Since taking ownership in 2011, Qatar Sports Investments has won nine Ligue 1 titles. However, the club has failed to achieve success in Europe and during that period, they have employed seven managers, four of them have been in the last four years.
Enrique, their most recent manager, led Barcelona to Champions League victory in 2014–15. He will be returning to Spain in three weeks for the second leg, and he knows his team has a good chance of progressing, partially because of Mbappe.
Although there has been a lot of discussion around the striker’s future because his contract expires at the end of June, the French forward who won the 2018 World Cup deserves recognition for his goals this season.
The most of any player in Europe’s top five leagues, Mbappe has contributed directly to 38 of his club’s 30 appearances this season (31 goals, 7 assists).
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In addition, he has 44 goals in 68 Champions League games for PSG and Monaco.
Mbappe, who has been linked to Real Madrid, stated in January that he had not decided on his future and that it was unclear where he would play football the next season.
With four of his seven shots on goal against Real Sociedad, he demonstrated why he is a valuable asset to PSG.
If Remiro hadn’t stopped him in the sixth minute after Mbappe was sent in with just the custodian to beat, he would have left with the match ball.
