Liverpool 0-1 PSG (Dembele 12′) – PSG win 4-1 on penalties
ANFIELD — Liverpool finally met their match this season, knocked out of the Champions League by a thrilling Paris Saint-Germain side in an enthralling tie that only penalties could decide.
Both teams are runaway leaders in their domestic leagues, but though Arne Slot’s side are blowing away everyone in the Premier League they were unable to squeeze past the Ligue 1 side in the tightest – and most fascinating – of last-16 games.
It was only a shame that these two sides didn’t meet later in the competition. Luis Enrique, the PSG coach, had made the bold claim that the winner would get to the final – it would have been a worthy edition.
Bucketloads of shots, keepers busy, some of the finest attackers, midfielders and defenders testing each other to the extremes.
They were inseparable over the two ties. Liverpool, accused of a smash-and-grab win with a goal from their only shot on target, after facing 27 in total, in Paris, turned up here to attack, rather than defend, their slender lead, but were left stunned by an early PSG counter.
The goal momentarily silenced a rabid Anfield crowd.
For 12 breathless minutes, they cheered every PSG mistake, whistled every touch, jeered every misplaced pass.
Then PSG’s goal came out of nowhere, by the most fortuitous of circumstances.
They broke swiftly, Ousmane Dembele picking up the ball and feeding Bradley Barcola.
When he played a low ball across the box, Ibrahima Konate slid in front of Alisson Becker, knocking the ball past his wrong-footed keeper and allowing Dembele a tap-in.
Anfield had been a giant balloon filling with pressure and intensity – Dembele burst it from yards out.
While many were still in hats and scarves mode, a not-insignificant group of hardened PSG fans braved the cold by removing tops, kept warm by the combined heat of leaping up and down in unison and the furious pace and tempo on the pitch, Liverpool’s attacking possession and their opponent’s counters combining like matches and kindling.
Liverpool peppered PSG’s goal but were disjointed. And by the end of the first half their own obvious chance, a cut back for Mohamed Salah, that you would have expected the Egyptian to score, was deflected for a corner.
Meanwhile Alisson was busy – again – blocking one-on-ones, while Virgil van Dijk prevented a Khvicha Kvaratskhelia shot from flying in.
But if they had seemed to be shrinking in the tie, Liverpool came out steaming in the second half, flooding PSG’s half with attack after attack, forcing their previously forward-thinking opponents to worry defensively.
They pressed and passed and chipped away, striking the inside of either post – through Trent Alexander-Arnold and his replacement Jarell Quansah – while their opponents could barely get out of their own half.
As legs grew tired, Liverpool grew into the game and had chances to win it.
In the end, it was probably fitting that penalties were the only thing that could separate these two remarkable sides.