'Wake-up call' for PSG as Bayern Munich provide stern test to Champions League hopes

Christophe Galtier's team take on in-form opponents in round of 16 with concerns about their own form

Paris Saint-Germain's French forward Kylian Mbappe takes part in a training session in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, west of Paris on February 13, 2023, on the eve of the UEFA Champions League round of Last 16 First leg football match against FC Bayern Munich. (Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP)

Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi take part PSG's training session in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. AFP

PSG's Lionel Messi, Marco Verratti, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar during training. AFP

Kylian Mbappe controls the ball during training alongside Marco Verratti and Achraf Hakimi. AFP

Marquinhos during training on Monday. AFP

PSG's Hugo Ekitike during training. Reuters

PSG midfielder Carlos Soler controls the ball during training. AFP

Soccer Football - Champions League - Paris St Germain Training - Ooredoo Training Centre, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France - February 13, 2023 Paris St Germain's Marco Verratti and Lionel Messi during training REUTERS / Sarah Meyssonnier

Neymar during training with teammates. AFP

Neymar and Lionel Messi during PSG's training. Reuters

Sergio Ramos takes part in PSG's training session. AFP

Presnel Kimpembe put a megaphone up towards his mouth and tried to drown out the boos.

He was standing a few metres in front of the away supporters’ section of the Louis-II stadium in Monaco. He had seen the banner there urging Paris Saint-Germain to ‘wake up!’.

The PSG defender assured the fans he and his teammates were heeding the advice. “We know what we have to do,” Kimpembe’s amplified voice told them. “But we need you. Don’t give up on us.”

PSG had just lost their second match within four days, Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to Monaco following elimination from the French Cup to Olympique Marseille.

Although their margin at the top of Ligue 1 is still a comfortable six points, the assignment Kimpembe implored the angry loyalists to back the team through is not comfortable at all.

Bayern Munich are at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday in the Champions League, the competition that has frustrated big-spending PSG for the past decade.

Manager Christophe Galtier, embarking on the first Champions League knockout tie of his career and barely half a season into a job that has seen off three worldlier managers since 2018, admits he is “concerned” about form.

The timing of the Bayern collision feels awkward. Besides the back-to-back defeats, there are the injuries.

Kylian Mbappe, PSG’s most reliable match-winner, is coming back from a thigh problem, and although he trained with colleagues on Monday, Galtier has promised there will be “zero risk” in any decision about if, or at what stage in the first leg against Bayern, Mbappe is used.

Marco Verratti, the metronome of midfield, and Lionel Messi, the match-winner of countless European ties through his period at Barcelona, are also coming back from injury. Their absences at the weekend had Galtier complaining about a shortage of senior players at a club envied everywhere for its recruiting power.

“It’s bizarre to say so of PSG, but that’s the reality,” said the coach, who used six players aged 20 or under at Monaco.

A makeshift defence conceded three times and the damage might have been greater had Gianluigi Donnarumma not reacted smartly to keep out further Monaco efforts.

The Italian goalkeeper has felt poorly protected since the turn of the new year, with just one clean sheet from his past eight matches. Marquinhos, the respected captain and central defender, has also come in for criticism since he returned from Brazil’s disappointing World Cup campaign.

That pair carry an especially dark memory of last year’s round-of-16 stage. They both shouldered blame for errors that allowed Real Madrid, through Karim Benzema’s stunning second-leg hat-trick, to come back from 2-0 down and eliminate PSG.

It was the fourth exit at the first knockout hurdle in the past six years, a period that has seen Neymar, at a world record €222 million, Mbappe, at a fee not far shy of that, and, in 2021, Messi come into the club.

That trio could not quite lift PSG to the top of their group in November and finishing second meant they drew Bayern, rather than, say, FC Brugge, setting up the glamour tie of the round and stimulating other fresh memories.

It was Bayern who extinguished PSG’s best ever run in the European Cup, winners by a single Kingsley Coman goal in the final of 2020.

While Bayern’s own form and injury issues might prompt some optimism in Galtier, he observed that his opponents are “getting back on track.”

After three back-to-back draws thinned Bayern’s lead in the Bundesliga to a single point, they have won their last two fixtures – the latest a 3-0 victory against Bochum.

Joao Cancelo, brought in on loan from Manchester City last month, could make his European debut for Bayern and Yann Sommer, signed to cover for Manuel Neuer’s broken leg, will be in goal. Striker Sadio Mane remains in recuperation, as does defender Lucas Hernandez, who is out long-term.

“We are highly motivated,” said Sommer, who moved from Borussia Monchengladbach when Neuer injured himself ski-ing during a post-World Cup break. “We’re up against a great side and we’re looking forward to that.”

“I’m hoping the excitement around this competition and this tie will lift us,” said Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann, who saw flaws in what he called a “flat” afternoon against Bochum.

“If we play like that again in Paris, it won’t be enough. We need to be outstanding because PSG are world-class, with or without Mbappe.”