Psg: brawls and quarrels before Bayern in the Champions League. Neymar: “Yes, let’s discuss” – Corriere.it

PARIS Paris Saint Germain the season is played against Bayern at the Parc des Princes, in the first leg of the round of 16 of the Champions League (Tuesday 14 February, 9 pm). In two weeks there will be a return to Munich but qualification must largely be won in the home game, and PSG face it in the worst conditions: another defeat on Saturday in the league against Monaco (1-3), field and in the locker room, contestation by the fans and the captain Marquinhos which finds nothing better than to come up with this sentence: «We are human beings, we lose so many things, we leave our families at home…».

Long a fan favourite, the Brazilian defender who travels with the rest of the team by private jet and is extending his contract until 2027, going from 10 to 16 million a year, complains of afternoons without wife and children: an attitude that is the symbol of the moat that separates part of the team from its fans, and which could cost Marquinhos the captain’s armband. Eliminated from the French Cup having lost the “classic” challenge with Olympique in Marseille, still first in the league standings despite three defeats since the start of the season, this year too the PSG is all played in the Champions League because this is the trophy he lacks and this is the only goal that really matters for the Qatari property.

But the team of the stellar trio MNM – Messi Neymar Mbappé – arrives at the match against Bayern in the worst possible conditions: Messi unrecognizable compared to the sensational performances with the Argentina shirt at the World Cup, and Neymar nervous, ready to accuse his teammates on the pitch but also to have his neighbors call the police for too many and too noisy parties in the villa on the outskirts of Paris.

The only positive news, a few hours into the match, is the miraculous recovery of Kylian Mbappé, increasingly loved by fans and possible new captain: despite the thigh muscle injury, the number 7 is better and wants to start from the first minute. At the cost of risking a more serious injury, Mbappé wants to take over a team that is falling apart. All sorts of things happened in Monaco on Saturday: listless and apathetic team, screaming fans «mouillez le maillot!», wet the shirt! (i.e. sweat, run!), the captain Marquinhos who at the end of the game runs and hides in the locker room and tells Donnarumma and the others not to go and greet the fans
because they are angry, some who disobey the captain and still go to apologize, among themselves Presnel Kimpembé asking for a megaphone to beg «Do not abandon us, not at this moment, we need you», before he too returns to the locker room to assist the brawl in Portuguese between sports director Luis Campos on one side and Neymar and Marquinhos on the other.

Yesterday at the press conference Neymar admitted it: «Football is not just love and friendship, there are discussions between us like there can be with my fiancée. We respect each other but it happens that there are contrasts ». The coach Christophe Galtier, next to him at the press conference, his permanence on the PSG bench is probably at stake and he says: «If there is frustration, you have to get it out. I listen to the players but they have to listen to me too. There is disappointment, and then anger after our defeats. We cleared up our ideas.” With Bayern, at stake is access to the quarterfinals, and the survival of a group and a cycle.