Dwight Schrute

To me, the situation before Chelsea Napoli is quite different as the coach was substituted between first and second leg. I think this was great source of motivation, and Chelsea were mostly led by experienced players during that match, like Drogba and Lampard who were even more motivated due to their situation with AVB back then. This kind of games are not played with talent only but with personality too. Do you think you still have players able to lead the team as they did 2 years ago? And I have the impression that a lot of you feel like it is more Chelsea's defeat than Paris victory? Paris controlled the game during 2nd half, they managed to keep the ball, which oblige Chelsea's players to run a lot. The best example is Veratti of course, he was not doing that great in the first half, as soon as he played with his usual leval, everything went better ... The most difficult for football supporters is not to accept the defeat, it's to accept the fact that there was not much the team could do about it.

Nothing's done yet. You only pay the musicians at the end of the ball (sorry literal translation). Had the game finished 2 min earlier, Chelsea would still be favorites and now Paris are, and I'd go for 65-35 before the next leg. I may sound pessimisitc but 2 0 can come very fast. Now regarding the game, the first half was strange. The first goal came very fast (too fast ?). Lavezzi was in a very though body position when kicking but he made it. You blame Cech but it came from a huge mistake from Terry. Then Chelsea ketp the ball and dominated while Paris were defending; the contrary of what we were expecting. Did Paris decide to wait in their part of the pitch after the goal? It makes no doubt that Chelsea decided to attack and keep the ball. They were impressive but this ball possession did not generate many goals opportuinities. Then, came Silva's foul. It was real but avoidable, a playr like TS can't do such an useless fool, even if Oscar made nothing to avoid him, which was smart. Then until the end of the half, the match became balanced again, even if turning point of the game was Hazard's shoot on goalspot. Then the second half, Paris scored twice, Cavani missed two goal opportunities. Regarding Paris' performance, I was sure Lavezzi, Matuidi and Jalled were going to be in big troubles in that game, they finally were the 3 best players. Ibrahimovic was just awful from the very beginning, he even lost the ball that led to the penalty. But given his record in knockout phase, it was predictable ... Cavani was bad and just improved when he went in the centre after Ibrahimovic injury. Veratti was awful in the first half, kept the goal way too much, took too muck risks. TS missed his first half too. They were all better in the second half and they managed to keep the ball as they usually do. Regarding Chelsea (I won't go in details, I was more focused on Paris), let me give you my view as someone who didn't see Chelsea that often ... The first goal chenged their plan, but from Lavezzi's goal, I really find Chelsea impressive when they kept the ball. This ball possession was not very efficient but impressive. After the goal, let alone the goalspot, the match was more balanced. Don't understand why Chelsea did not keep attacking as they were doing? Weren't they able to? Was it a choice? It was a great opportunity to kill Paris. Now the second leg. Ibrahimovic may have been a flop yesterday, it very bad news. Cavani is as good as him as CF but Paris will lose Cavani's definding work on the right side. And I don't know how Paris will start the game. Will they attack to try to score at least a goal? Or will they defend? We saw during the first half that they do not know to be a defensive team and let ball to the opposition. It will be very hard game but it's an opportunity to show they're really a great team. Both teams were very tired and will play on Saturday. Most of Paris' players playing next tuesday will probably have some rest, while Chelsea will play an important game for race for the Premier League. For supersitious people : Chelsea: everything you said about Napoli in 2012 (3-1, Stoke, ...) PSG: last time a French team (Monaco) played against Chelsea in the knockout phase, 3-1 in the first leg (same scenario, 1-0, 1-1 after the first half, 2-1, 3-1), then 2-2 in Stamford Bridge

According to Al-Khelaifi, Ibra will miss the second leg

22% (according to French channel Canal +)

99% sure Ibra won't play. It isually takes week to cure a hamstring injury (which he seems to suffer from)

Some stats (from 1970 until 2009, in all european cups) regarding the winning team according to the first-leg result (the winning percentage is the one of the team which played the first leg at home) 5-0 : 85/85 (100%)4-0 : 140/140 (100%)5-1 : 52/53 (98.1%)3-0 : 311/333 (93.4%)4-1 : 92/105 (87.6%)2-0 : 417/516 (80.8%)3-1 : 187/243 (77.0%)4-2 : 33/46 (71.7%)1-0 : 418/719 (58.1%)2-1 : 194/401 (48.4%)3-2 : 53/128 (41.4%)0-0 : 172/517 (33.3%)1-1 : 124/524 (23.7%)2-2 : 37/191 (19.4%)0-1 : 42/408 (10.3%)1-2 : 13/245 (5.3%)2-3 : 2/67 (3.0%)0-2 : 4/224 (1.8%)1-3 : 2/126 (1.6%)0-4 : 0/43 (0%)0-5 : 0/46 (0%)1-4 : 0/57 (0%)0-3 : 0/118 (0%)From 1994 until 2010, in the CL knockout phase. In 85 times out of 152, the winner was the team which played the second leg at home, i.e. 56% (for those who are really into maths and stats: http://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/11483/1/tr080.pdf) I know I said before football isn't science but still interesting to me.

Yes, he already played last friday after his injury, he will just wear a mask.

Sorry, my mistake, I have sometimes troubles to make sentences straight to the point

Van der Wiel will miss the match (for French-speaking members: http://www.eurosport.fr/football/ligue-des-champions/2013-2014/psg-chelsea-van-der-wiel-forfait_sto4197342/story.shtml. Did not find an english article yet)

Correct me if I am wrong but playing home against Chelsea is mostly difficult because Chelsea let the opponent team have the ball and dominate. So you think you will score win, and the more you think so and the more you play high, but you never scores ... and comes the deadly counter attack. I have the impression Chelsea's defense (when they play away) is like a quagmire and a lot of teams fall into the trap. As the most important is keeping a clean-sheet before the second leg, I do not know what Paris should do. Attacking, which might be dangerous, is their "natural" game but not playing your natural game is dangerous too. Who shoots the free-kicks when Lampard doesn't play? In 2003, best leagues are the Italian Serie A and the Spanish Liga. Almost every foreign big superstars who don't play in their domestic leagues play in those leagues: Zidane, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Scheva, Nedved, Figo, Trezeguet, Batistuta, Beckham, ... and so on. Abramovich's money is precisely one the reasons why Premier League became the best european league: 2 european cups out of the 4 won by english clubs since 2003 come from Chelsea, 3 out the 8 finals are due to Chelsea, that's quite a lot which is due to Abramovitch money. You are telling about 5 big english clubs that are big european teams (Tottenham is far from being a big european team) but two of them have been built on money and were nothing in 2003. And please don't tell me Chelsea would have been a middle/top european team without Abrahimovic, you were having a big financial crisis back in 2003. Anyway, telling that we should only allow teams coming from EPL to spend money because they are from EPL is a nonsense ... He had scored 19 goals in 28 matchs in one of the best European leagues, and 9 goals in 12 CL matches the season before he came ...

Of course it is not very bright, but the goal is make Paris win, not to make Cavani score. They were not wrong about the player but about the formation system they bought him for. IMO, Torres, Schevchenko or Pastore have been much bigger failures (I am not provoking, just pointing out that it often happens in clubs that are able to spend so much money on players). Bundesliga, let alone the Bayern, is better than L1 but is overrated in my opinion because a lot of people make no distinction between the level and the show. There are a lot of goals, the stadiums are huge, modern and full, the games are very open while L1 is boring, the teams defend too much. But what about the level? This year in CL, Chelsea and Real Madrid crushed Schalke 04, Manchester and Paris crushed Bayer Leverkusen. Borussia Dormund? It's a short-term phenomenon. 2 years ago, Marseille beat them easily in their CL group and they even ended up behind Olympliakos. They had a great CL last year but they did a great performance against Real Madrid, twice, but they only eliminated Donestk. To give you an idea, I think there is a difference of level between bundesliga (with the best euroeapn team) and L1 but it's smaller than that between EPL and Bundesliga.

They hired him thinking they would play in a 4 4 2. It finally did not work and 4 4 3 has been much better so far. Football is not science (fortunately) ...

So some people are being paid to look for some football stats and to put them in their tweets? I missed the perfect job ...

Yes they should increase his salary, as they did with Thiago Siva and Ibrahimovic. But problem is that he is not playing in his right position on the field and I don't know if he can cope with that again for a long time. Central forward are selfish players, Cavani may have a great fighting spirit but the team's star is Ibramovich who plays as the only central forward and he must have troubles to accept that. Don't know if a pay raise will be enough. Regarding Ba, he could be a good option as a central forward subsitute and regarding Wallace, Paris has enough money not to be obligated to bet on young players I don't think they could be interested. IMO agreements like the Vitesse Arnhem-Chelsea one work because both clubs are not opponents and have different levels: Chelsea have an option to buy young talented Vitesse Arnhem players and Vitesse Arnhem has already an outlet to sell them. Such an agreement between Paris and Chelsea would be a nonsense to me: both clubs now play the same european competition and often aim at the same players.

Yes, PSG is looking for a left winger (there is no left footer offensive player in the club) and a right back (I think they'll do their best to sign Dani Alves)? But do you see a player that could interest PSG and that Chelsea would be willing to sell? I don't, maybe you have one. Mata would have just been perfect but it's too late. And if Cavani really wants to leave, I think they would try to "promote" Lucas on the right side so they are unkely to ask Chelsea to include a right winger in the deal.

He knew from the very beginning he would'nt play in the best league. But he didn't know he would play as a winger. Blanc wanted to play in a 4-4-2 (with Ibrahimovic and Cavani as centre forwards) but the team was not balanced and it did not work out. Now, the 4 4 3 is doing fine and Blanc can't move Ibrahimovic on a side. Now let's see how he will be doing during the WC (Cavani-Suarez, what a duo), but he is one of the stars of the competition, I doubt he will accept to keep play on the right.

I'm tired of this argument ... If PSG was nothing before Qatar arrived, then so was Chelsea before Abramovitch arrived. The latest few years before new owner arrived may have been better for Chelsea, but both clubs were roughly in the same situation: 2 CWP for Chelsea, 1 for Paris, 1 National league for Chelsea, 2 for Paris, 3 national cups for Chelsea, 8 for Paris. I have no problem with you telling that Chelsea is going to win easily but at least try to be honnest when talking about the past.

PSG is hard to judge when it comes to ball retrieving as they had high ball possession in almost every of their games so far ... The more you have the ball, the less you have to retrieve it. But against Monaco, best team they played against so far, it was more difficult. In the last game (in Monaco), PSG scored very early so they let Monaco play, but still, they had some troubles to retrive the ball (in my opinion). Who is the best? To me, the three (Motta, Veratti and Matuidi) are roughly equal. But they are different when it comes to offensive game. Both Veratti and Motta have a great pass quality and driblling skills (espcially Veratti) while Matuidi is great at perforing opponent's defense and has less technical skills than his teammates. Regarding the game against Chelsea, Veratti can make it if he keeps his ability to play under pressure. But he will have not to keep the ball as long as usual; he can sometimes take risks to dribble. I think Motta will be fine but I am little bit worried about Matuidi, his lack of technical skills could be a drawback. As I said before, it is just my opinion, I let other psg fans reply if they do not agree.

Just to give you an idea, "recovering-ball line" in league matches is usually around 50-55 metres, while the opponent's is aroud 30 metres. I did not find fgures for CL matches but it is probably a little less. So they play quite high on the field and at the same time, they're quite compact, as Ibrahimovic plays often as a #10, close to Verrati and Matuidi. Quid pro quo, they are sometimes in troubles with opponent's counter attacks. Regarding weaknesses, I would just add that the whole team, not only Lavezzi, can be quite inneficient by missing numerous goal opportunities (e.g. game against Nice last Friday) As Kurupt said, the most serious issue for PSG will be the right side with Jallet being responsible for containing Hazard (according to the very latest news, VDW will probably miss the game). IMO, Marquinhos would be much better given his defending qualities ... The only good news is that Cavani defends a lot.

Are you sure Lampard won't play? I understand why he is no longer playing every week-end but his experience could be a great asset in this kind of game.

Don't take it serioulsy, that was just a joke ...

One day, the French will rule the world ... But not tomorrow, we're on strike.

@Burlingtonberty: sorry I was editing my message while you were replying. And sorry for thinking you might be an Olympiakos fan

IMO, the Bosman ruling was a great change because it weakened a lot of European leagues, where local players left. And at the begininng of the 90's, English clubs were not in a great shape (because of the 5-years ban from European cups too), and Bosman ruling really improved their level (among other reasons). New foreign coaches and players put an end to the traditional British kick & rush, allowed better tactic strategies, while Italian clubs and their catenaccio wre the best in that field back then. As a Greek, you should know that Pana reached the CL semi-final in 1995 (sorry for remenbering that if you're an Olympiakos fan ). Today, having a Greek team in CL semi final is clearly impossible (because the template has changed too) But the Bosman ruling had its bad and good consequences, it's clear whan you look at French football. Early 90's: good clubs in European cups but bad national team, late 90's: bad claubs in European cups but best national team in the world, since a lot of players were allowed to play abroad for top teams, especially in Italy. And regarding English football, Greg Dykes complained about all those foreign players in England as he scares for english national team in the future.

@Zlatan_Master: I've been there for a week and don't worry, people are fine with english mistakes. The only person who replied to your message is a French speaking Belgian, most of people don't understand French in this forum and bad english is still better than French. And if you have problems, you can ask me.