French Giants Paris Saint-Germain found themselves once again on the way out of the Champions League, despite a favourable first leg scoreline.  PSG beat an unconvincing Manchester United team 2-0 at Old Trafford in the first leg of the competition. You can catch the highlights or read about it

here. PSG, even with the clear scoreline advantage, somehow managed to fumble the competition once again due to a 3-3 aggregate scoreline. Avid football fans will remember in 2017 when they battered Barcelona 4-0 in the first leg but still ended up getting knocked out of the competition, after the second leg ended 6-1 in Barcelona’s favour. So where did it go wrong for PSG? They were once again unable to stop themselves from bottling the competition by keeping their defenses in order. While Thiago Silva, their central defender, had a decent game, I found that the defenders were giving the Manchester United attackers too much space. In addition to that, Gianluigi Buffon wasn’t having a great game. He has to take credit for some of the goals conceded by PSG that night. PSG at least tried to keep possession, perhaps to decrease the opportunities Manchester United would have had to score. This backfired horribly, while they had 72% possession and more than double the shots than Manchester United did, Man-U is in the quarter finals and PSG is not. Also bear in mind that although PSG still had their injury troubles (with Neymar Jr. nursing a broken foot and Cavani just barely able to start on the bench) Manchester United was missing key players whether by injury or suspension. The most obvious absence was that of Paul Pogba – and Manchester fans will tell you, they’d prefer Pogba to start over Romelo Lukaku, especially in a big fixture like this.  Even though Man-U was having a better game, PSG were still just a couple minutes from the quarter finals placement. Man-U, however, were awarded a controversial penalty when Presnel Kimpembe was pegged by the referee for a handball foul. Even though many pundits don’t agree that it was a penalty, arguing that the defender’s arm would have been out and it was natural position for his hand to be in, the referees argue that he was trying to make his body bigger by using his hands and so therefore it’s a penalty. Marcus Rashford converted on the spot and sent Manchester United through during injury time.  While PSG will blame the penalty for the defeat, I believe they need to take some responsibility. They were not playing a good match and it shouldn’t have gotten to the point where that goal would have knocked them out. They should have held down the fort better, especially since they were at home, to avoid a situation like that. I’m especially disappointed with them because they’ve been in that position before with Barcelona. When will you learn your lesson PSG?