Kylian Mbappe on Tuesday struck in the fourth minute of stoppage-time to give Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) a 1-0 win over Real Madrid in the first leg of their heavyweight UEFA Champions League last-16 tie.
It looked as though Real would escape with a draw when Lionel Messi had a penalty saved by Thibaut Courtois just after the hour mark at the Parc des Princes.
In the last minute of stoppage-time, Mbappe cut into the box from the left and between two defenders before finishing past Courtois for his 22nd goal this season.
Photo: AFP
Tipped to move to Madrid when his contract in Paris expires at the end of the season, Mbappe’s last-gasp strike means his current club have the edge heading into the return at the Santiago Bernabeu on March 9.
The France World Cup-winning striker might have focused much of the attention coming into this tie amid the speculation about his future, but the array of attacking talent elsewhere could not be overlooked.
Messi was coming up against Madrid for the first time since leaving Barcelona, for whom he scored a record 26 goals in El Clasico over his years at Camp Nou.
Real also knew all about the threat of Angel di Maria, who won the Champions League with the Spanish giants in 2014.
He started because Neymar was only deemed fit enough for a place on the bench, having not played since the end of November due to an ankle injury.
The fragile Brazilian might have wondered how to fit back into Mauricio Pochettino’s team, as he watched the way they played without him in the first half.
PSG showed a hunger that has been lacking for most of the campaign in Ligue 1, even as they built a huge lead at the top of the table.
PSG’s pressing game suffocated their opponents, although Real were seemingly quite happy to defend deep and give up possession, aware that a 0-0 draw would do just fine with the away goals rule scrapped from this season.
That meant that Karim Benzema, Real’s top scorer making his return after a three-game spell out injured, saw practically none of the ball along with the two players flanking him, Vinicius Jr and Marco Asensio.
For most of the first half, PSG played perhaps their best soccer since the arrival of Messi in August last year, although Courtois only really had to make one save of note in that time, to deny Mbappe in the 18th minute.
The visitors would have tried to regroup at halftime, but less than five minutes after the restart, Mbappe forced Courtois into an excellent save low to his right.
Courtois then topped that by diving to his left to keep out Messi’s 62nd-minute penalty, awarded after Mbappe was chopped down by Dani Carvajal, who he had tormented all evening.
Also on Tuesday, it was:
‧ Sporting 0, Man City 5
Luka Doncic on Monday produced a 46-point masterpiece as the Los Angeles Lakers snapped the Chicago Bulls’ four-game winning streak with a 129-118 victory on the road. Doncic rattled in eight three-pointers on 15-of-25 shooting from the field, finishing with seven rebounds and 11 assists to lead an impressive Lakers effort at the United Center. LeBron James chipped in with 24 points, five rebounds and three assists, while Rui Hachimura delivered an eye-catching cameo off the bench with 23 points from nine-of-11 shooting. The win was another encouraging result for the Lakers after a 116-110 defeat of the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday. “We did
The Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo on Friday said that he will probably be out for an extended period after hurting his right calf again after a similar injury caused him to miss eight games earlier this season. Antetokounmpo had his right calf wrapped in the first half of their 102-100 loss to the Denver Nuggets. He did not appear comfortable the rest of the night and left for good with 34 seconds remaining. “At the end, I could not move no more, so I had to stop playing,” Antetokounmpo said. The two-time NBA Most Valuable Player said he expected to undergo an MRI
Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews is confident in the US men’s ice hockey team and its chances of capturing a gold medal at next month’s Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. The 28-year-old center is among the NHL stars who return to the Olympics for the first time since Sochi, Russia, in 2014 as part of a men’s lineup seeking the first US gold since 1980’s Lake Placid “Miracle on Ice” triumph. “We feel like we’re up there and we should be competing for gold,” Matthews said after practice on Monday in comments on the NHL Web site. “It’s obviously the first Olympics
LICENSE TO THRILL: Fans of Learner Tien, the youngest man to reach the quarter-finals in 11 years, wore ‘L Plates,’ signs for learning drivers, in support of the 20-year-old Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien and Japanese partner Eri Hozumi yesterday dominated eighth seeds Ellen Perez of Australia and the Netherlands’ Demi Schuurs to advance to the Australian Open quarter-finals, the furthest the Taiwanese has made it since her first appearance in Melbourne in 2020. Wu and Hozumi overpowered world No. 21 Perez and world No. 20 Schuurs 6-2, 6-2 in 1 hour, 11 minutes at 1573 Arena in much cooled temperatures since Saturday’s blazing 40°C disrupted play. World No. 34 Wu has now made it further in the Australian Open since she was knocked out in the third round in 2024. The Taiwanese-Japanese duo
RSS