MOTD: Chelsea 2-2 PSG (3-3 agg)

By on March 11, 2015

It was almost bittersweet for any English football fan (bar Chelsea supporters, of course), to see the same side that has dominated the Premier League so thoroughly, out-played, out-fought, and out-thought by a ten-man Paris Saint-Germain side. Chelsea, up a man after Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s sending off, twice gave up a lead at home. Now, unless Arsenal pulls a miraculous comeback in Monaco or Manchester City defeats Barcelona away from home, not a single English team, bar Everton, will be left in the Champions League or Europa League by the Quarterfinal stage.

Even Jose Mourinho couldn’t cover this one up with a conspiracy theory; the stars had aligned for Chelsea. They had the luck of the referees in Ibrahimovic’s sending-off (afterwards, Mourinho even called for the Swede to be let off by UEFA); The Blues were at home, so no ballboy trouble; PSG even gifted The Blues a goal. Chelsea, very simply, weren’t good enough. Diego Costa was edging for a fight and Mourinho livid by full-time, but had naught to blame but their own shortcomings.

No longer was Mourinho running the puppet show. Laurent Blanc controlled the tempo of the game with every tactical decision he made and even without Ibrahimovic, PSG terrorized Chelsea. Mourinho’s men didn’t blunder the lead — they lost control of their fate at the hands of, on the night, a better team. For all the fury and grit Costa brought to the game, Diego Luiz and Thiago Silva were there to match the Spaniard. Chelsea’s defense was grit and attack grace, but at both, bettered.

The stats don’t lie, either — PSG’s twenty-two successful aerial duels outnumbered Chelsea’s by eight. The Blues slightly edged PSG in terms of shots and possession, yet herein lies the heart of Chelsea’s shortcomings: once Ibrahimovic was sent off, they should have been able to control the match further. Chelsea didn’t, and if anything, PSG’s proactive play thereafter only doubly troubled the home side. The match lay on the edge of the needle, when Chelsea would have fearlessly dominated a weaker or even slightly better side in the same situation.

In quite an introduction to Europe’s elite level of football, PSG pulled a rabbit out of their hat. From the very start, they’d made the match uncomfortable for Chelsea, who couldn’t get their passing game together. Admittedly, PSG brought the game to Chelsea with rough defending, and Thiago Silva ended the game with a black eye. David Luiz entered a Chelsea legend still warm in The Blues’ hearts, yet after only an hour of launching himself head-to-head with Costa was on the enemy’s books.

Indeed, Luiz may as well have slapped his old employers in the face after smacking a thunderous header into the back of the net late on. It was the least PSG deserved, though, after unwaveringly going after an all-important away goal for the last half hour of regulation time. The Parisians thought they’d gotten it when Edison Cavani ran onto the end of Thiago Motta’s through ball and rounded Thibaut Courtois near the hour mark, only to watch his shot hit the inside of the post and bobble across the goalline before being cleared. Gary Cahill’s sucker punch, an eighty-first minute volleyed goal from a corner, went to amplify PSG’s threat going forward after Blanc introduced Ezequiel Lavezzi and Adrien Rabiot.

In extra-time, Silva needlessly, stupidly (there really aren’t enough adjectives to do justice to his utterly baffling decision) gave away a penalty after attempting to beat Costa in an aerial duel by use of… his hands. Hazard was as cool as can be in converting the following penalty.

Still, there was more left in the game for PSG, and Silva miraculously redeemed himself with a looping header in the hundred-fourteenth minute. Courtois, who had done well to save Silva’s header from the previous corner, could only watch as the ball sailed into the top right corner.  That one critical away goal leads PSG into the Champions League Quarterfinals.
Man of the Match: David Luiz

Homepage photo credit: Doha Stadium Plus Qatar on Flickr

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.