Dortmund-PSG: Mbappe annoyed, was Luis Enrique weak at the end of the match?

At the very end of the game on Wednesday evening, when the score was 1-1 between Dortmund and PSG, incomprehension spread among the Parisian ranks. The reason ? On Luis Enrique's orders, it was indicated to manage the last minutes and secure second place in the group behind the Germans, as Milan led Newcastle. In the end, the score remained as it was at the Westfalenstadion (1-1) and also between Newcastle and Milan (1-2). The Spanish coach's decision, however, did not please all the players, Kylian Mbappé in the lead. For others, the choice was logical to ensure qualification and this second place. Same debate within the sports editorial staff of Le Figaro.

Paris has fallen into line this season in Europe and it shows. On the field, with a team incapable of winning a match in its three first round trips with a midfield where only Zaire-Emery has the level of the European top 8, and outside, with money-time management on Wednesday in the Ruhr worthy of a Coupe de France boy keen to keep his score advantage. Except that PSG, with a budget of €700M, including €160 spent on Ramos and Kolo Muani this summer, and which has the best player in the world in its ranks, is not a second-rate club in C1.

At this point in the game, Dortmund and their distressingly heavy defense had nothing left in their legs, and they should have delivered the final blow. Make an impression. Act like a leader. And assume your status. Mbappé had legs, the spaces multiplied and a converted opportunity would have validated first place. We will see on Monday with the draw whether Luis Enrique's lack of ambition was in vain, but it is disappointing on the part of the Spaniard. It's all well and good to repeat that he arrives in Paris with great ambitions and to ask his troops to close up shop against a BVB that is far from being a great Dortmund. This is perhaps also the new PSG. Dream less big. In this case, you have to repeat it, stop having double talk and accept the fact that your best player decides to look elsewhere in January because the ambitions are no longer the same.

Yes, the objective is necessarily to finish at the top of the group when you are PSG. For that, it would have been necessary to take it to Signal Iduna Park. And it was possible... Possible because PSG had the chances to score in the first half, and what chances. Possible also because Borussia was done for at the end of the match and, moreover, had no interest in pushing since the draw was also doing its business. In these conditions, we can therefore think that it was a small effort to have clearly calmed the game on the Parisian side in the last minutes and ultimately to have been content with second place. Luis Enrique doesn't hide it, the players didn't try to pretend about it either.

But what would we have said if Paris had conceded a goal and therefore been relegated to the Europa League? We should have made the difference before. This is before PSG could and should have scored, Randal Kolo Muani on his duels with the opposing goalkeeper, Bradley Barcola on this shot which hits the post, Kylian Mbappé deprived of candy by a staggering save on the line... List non- exhaustive. We can also think back to the missed opportunities, in Milan (2-1 defeat), against Newcastle (1-1). It was not between the 85th and the end of the match on Wednesday that Paris lost pole. In the final minutes of the match, with Milan leading 2-1, the wisest choice was not to take any risks, the choice of reason. No offense to Mbappé. Relegation to C3 would have represented a terrible failure. And this is what was hanging over the Parisians' noses if they had lost in Dortmund. Obviously, finishing second should be synonymous with a complicated draw in the 8th. “But it will also be difficult for the other team,” as Gigio Donnarumma said.