The French press destroys Messi and praises Mbappé
The heads and tails PSG deserved victory against Real Madrid. The French press is forceful this Wednesday morning with its conclusions of 1-0 the day before in the Parc des Princes in Paris. Elevate the altars to the scorer Kylian Mbappewhile unceremoniously suspending Leo Messiwho is not forgiven for the penalty that Thibaut Courtois stopped.
“Mais si, c'est encore lui! (“But yes, it was him again!”), headlines 'L'Équipe' in an image of the French striker celebrating the great goal that gave the Parisians the victory in extremis and making a play on words with the phonetics of Messi's name, whose performance he describes as "worrying".
A 3 and a 3.5
Although he was participatory in the combination game -especially in the second half- and gave several great passes to his teammates Mbappé or Neymar, the sports newspapers of the neighboring country are implacable with the performance of the former Barça captain. 'L'Equipe' and 'Le Parisien' they suspend their performance with a 3 and a 3.5 respectively, while the striker from Bondy is ranked as the best of the game with 8 and 8.5.
“This Messi is worrying (…). There is something sad to see him play like this (...). In the one-on-one he suffers the athletic impact”, underlines 'L'Équipe'. “In the second half he improved, he made some effective passes. But his performance was hampered by his missed or rejected shots and by the penalty that stopped him, ”adds the main French sports newspaper, which gave Messi the worst mark of all the players in the game. PSG. Equally forceful is 'Le Parisien': "In addition to this failure (the missed penalty), the Argentine played an approved match".
The jinx with penalties
In fact, the French press remembers the jinx of the former Barça captain with the penalties on the Champions. After having missed a maximum penalty last year in the Parc des Princes, a goal that would have given Barça hope to come back to PSG, Messi suffered the same situation again on Tuesday, although now wearing the local shirt. The seven-time winner of the Golden Ballaccording to 'Le Parisien', “he has missed 5 of 23 penalty shots in the Champions League, more than any other player since Opta (English statistics company) collects this data since 2003”.
Despite not having played a bad game, these harsh criticisms reflect the divorce between Messi and the French sports opinion. The images in August of fans acclaiming him in Paris as the "D10S" of the beautiful game are already part of the past. The new version of the Argentine, more delayed and focused on the creation of the game, does not excite PSG fans.
More than the positional game, in France there is a more physical football, faster and with greater punch. We must not forget the fervor with which the matches of Didier Deschamps' soporific team live. Faced with this football vision, the last years of football enjoyment that veteran Messi can give do not fit.
