Keystone
Paris Saint-Germain has its back to the wall in France. On Sunday against third-placed Lyon and on Holy Saturday against Leader Lille, the champions can no longer afford to fail.
It is astonishing how exciting the starting position at the top of Ligue 1 is before the end of the season compared to the other top leagues. While in England Manchester City is 14 points ahead of Manchester United, or Inter Milan in Italy has distanced their city rivals Milan by 9 points, in France there is only a small gap of 3 points between leader and pursuer.
It is even more astonishing that champions Paris Saint-Germain are not classified in first place, but have been chasing the leader OSC Lille for almost two months now. And Olympique Lyon are tied with PSG in 3rd place. A preliminary decision could now be made in the next two rounds: Paris Saint-Germain will visit Lyon on Sunday (9:00 p.m.), and in the next round, on April 3, the league’s financial giant will receive leader Lille.
In order to be able to defend the title successfully, Paris has to increase its return in the top games significantly. Against Lille, Lyon, Olympique Marseille and newly promoted Lens, the other five top 6 teams in the ranking, PSG have scored a measly four points in seven games so far. Last year’s Champions League finalist left the pitch as a loser five times in these top games.
The memories of the 0-1 home defeat in the first half of the season against Lyon are particularly painful. After this game in mid-December, the big favorite slipped back from 1st to 4th place in the table. And even worse: In this game, superstar Neymar injured his ankle and then fell out for over a month.
Most recently, Neymar has again missed five games – this time because of an adductor injury. PSG lost two out of five games in Ligue 1 at this stage. But now the Brazilian’s comeback is announced for the duel with Lyon. However, the rather poor results in the championship can not only be explained by Neymar’s many absences – he missed almost 40 percent of the games. With Neymar, PSG has an average of 1.72. Without Neymar, the average is 2.06.
With or without Neymar: Against Lyon and Lille, Paris Saint-Germain can no longer afford to make mistakes. Otherwise it will probably not work out to defend the title. And anyway: The seven defeats in Ligue 1 so far have long been more than enough for this sinfully expensive ensemble.
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