The draw for the quarter-finals of this season’s Champions League is on St Patrick’s Day and you will need to consult your nearest shamrock to name with confidence the last eight clubs in Europe’s foremost competition. Rarely can so many distinguished presences have arrived in February in such flux.
The competition resumes on Tuesday with state-funded Paris Saint-Germain hosting those plucky Bavarian underdogs, Bayern Munich.
PSG, of course, are as rich as they wish to be. Qatar’s state club, based at the Parc des Princes, has a desire for success, prestige, profile and access – and not necessarily in that order. But winning a Champions League is certainly part of the plan.
Can PSG do that this season? Given they have Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar in attack, the answer should be positive. That’s one lucky shamrock of a forward line and they are third favourites to win the big trophy.
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Supplementing this strike force, in the summer of 2021 when Messi landed in Paris, PSG brought in Gianluigi Donnaruma, Sergio Ramos and Georginio Wijnaldum. These were allegedly free transfers. And for good measure, for a mere €60 million, Achrif Hakimi was signed from Inter Milan. Last summer they spent a further €140 million on players such as Vitinha from Porto.
How this is financed should always matter, but in a week when it really does, it is worth recapping that last year, even with Neymar and Messi in the building on astronomical salaries, Qatar found a new mountain of cash in flat Doha to retain Mbappé as Real Madrid hovered. The figures reported were a basic wage of €1.5 million per week boosted by a seasonal loyalty payment of €70 million and a seasonal signing-on fee of €60 million.
Sometimes we marvel at volume; sometimes we are left cold by it.
But all this investment says PSG should be serious contenders to get that first European Cup silver at the Parc.
And yet, although we know money talks, when it comes from PSG it is not so persuasive.
Post-World Cup this is a team with one clean sheet in Ligue 1 – at home to Angers, who are bottom. Even that victory, if predictable, was unconvincing.
It was necessary, because it came between two defeats at Lens and Rennes. On New Year’s Day, Lens scored three and it could have been more. There was a comical moment when Ramos fell flat on his face; L’Équipe gave him 3/10; he is 37 next month. “It’s the first time I’ve seen my team so disorganised,” said PSG coach Christophe Galtier.
A fortnight later, after a 1-0 defeat at Rennes, Galtier had to address the same theme: “I’m not worried, but we need a wake-up call. The World Cup is over. We’ve been scattered for eight weeks, so we have to retrieve some cohesiveness and pace.”
Since then PSG have won twice in the league to sit top, but they have lost Mbappé to injury and on Wednesday night they slumped out of the French Cup, beaten 2-1 at Marseilles. On Saturday, PSG fly south again, to AS Monaco, who are unbeaten in Ligue 1 since the World Cup. There is scope for further alarm before Tuesday.
Mbappé’s absence then will be a headline. Chippy Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann said it could be “a poker move”, which has left PSG unimpressed. He will feel the same way about Messi’s sore hamstring.
Nagelsmann has issues of his own – goalkeeper-captain Manuel Neuer broke his leg skiing after the World Cup and Sadio Mané is still out. The Bundesliga restarted later than other leagues, so Bayern have played only four games since; they have won one of them and not kept a clean sheet.
Bayern can score, though – perhaps not at the rate of October when they belted in 32 in eight games, but they will fancy PSG’s defence. The celebrity focus will be on PSG’s attack, but these games may be decided by PSG’s centre halves and what will be intriguing, and possibly tumultuous, is Mbappé’s attitude if it goes wrong.
There is a Parisian belief, allied to President Emmanuel Macron’s relationship with Mbappé, that the player will stay in his hometown until the Paris Olympics of 2024 are over.
The theory, however, could be about to be tested. Because not only is it possible to foresee a PSG elimination, there is no guarantee Champions League holders Real Madrid will be in the last eight either. Real face an admittedly wobbly Liverpool – first leg at Anfield – in a repeat of last May’s troubled final in Paris.
Real got there, you may recall, having gone into the 90th minute of the semi-final second leg 5-3 down against Manchester City. Then Real scored three and we all gasped.
Can Madrid enjoy such luck again? Perhaps, Liverpool are hardly flowing, but if Jurgen Klopp’s squad succeed, then will Real’s reaction include a call to Mbappé?
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As for City, they meet RB Leipzig, who have not lost since September. The draw might seem favourable to City, but they are being confronted by huge questions as a club as well as a team. In Erling Haaland, City acquired certainty, yet the club feels uncertain.
Bayern and Leipzig are two of four German clubs left, with Borussia Dortmund meeting Chelsea in what looks like a 50/50 game. So does AC Milan v Tottenham and Inter Milan v Porto. Club Bruges, where Scott Parker is manager, play Benfica. The Portuguese should progress but could we see any of these teams winning June’s final in Istanbul? Benfica, maybe.
The final German club are Eintracht Frankfurt, who won the Europa League last season. But Frankfurt finished behind Spurs in their Champions League group and they face the outsiders who are genuine contenders, Napoli.
Napoli, rightly, are considered the most exciting elite team in Europe. They are 13 points clear in Serie A, having not lost a league game until January. It was 1-0 at Inter Milan; Napoli have followed it with five straight wins, including a 5-1 walloping of Juventus.
In the group stage, Napoli had already put four past Liverpool and six past Ajax. The Italians were the top scorers in any group. Their two Serie A games before Frankfurt are against bottom club, Cremonese and 15th placed Sassuolo and the size of their lead at the top means players can be rested and rotated. There should be a freshness to them.
Clubs with bigger names and more powerful budgets will attract attention, but none has hit February on the march.
Napoli, meanwhile, are moving sweetly among them, a 10-1 shot with a 4-1 chance in a wide-open field. They might need some luck, but so do the rest.
