PSG trashed us earlier this season, twice.
They were amongst the heaviest defeats we’ve ever suffered as a club. We were simply outclassed in both matches, and they looked like a team that would go on to possibly even win the Champions League.
They are out, having crashed last night to Real Madrid who beat them home and away.
The question has been raised as to whether or not we really should have been losing so heavily to that side; as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t arise. They are Tier 1 club who have been knocked out by another Tier 1 club. This happens. It should not affect our perspective.
Paul67 on CQN has pointed out that Real are currently sitting fifth in their domestic league.
Their domestic league is La Liga, unquestionably the biggest league, with the best technical footballers, in world football. Madrid play against quality teams every single week. Any one of their top six would be good enough to challenge for at least the Europa League.
And perhaps that’s the point, perhaps that’s the problem, and if it is then it’s something we might well have to consider ourselves; is the problem with PSG the same one that we have? Are they robbed of genuine competition on the domestic front, and does that hamstring them when they venture onto European soil against the bigger sides?
It might well be true for PSG, and as such I would say they are in for a rough ride at the top level. I do not believe it’s as big an issue for us, and I’ll explain why.
PSG really aren’t challenged too much in France. That almost definitely is a problem for them when they are forced to step up a grade. Similarly, although Scottish football isn’t as bad as a lot of people make it out to be nobody is going to pretend it’s on a par with other leagues.
Our Champions League campaign was the longest of any side in this year’s competition, and we played Europa League games on top of it. Part of what makes European football so important to Celtic is that it’s where we play against teams on our own level. Even teams like Astana spend more money than most of our SPL counterparts … you would have to be crazy not to think that a team with their resources would struggle at that level.
We will get better the more of these games we play, and that will equip us for taking on the bigger teams somewhere along the line. So goes the theory. But PSG, because of the money they spend, very rarely get tested even in Europe. They found qualifying from our group to be a relatively straightforward exercise, but went out the moment they played must-win games against a club from the European football elite.
I think we’re in a better situation than they are. We aren’t expected to win European Cups, not even to compete at that high a level anymore. The limitations of our game mean that level of expectation does not exist for us.
On top of that, there’s one other factor in why this PSG side has struggled and it may be similar to why the likes of Chelsea and Real themselves have struggled domestically.
They are a collection of individuals rather than a team. There are dressing room factions at PSG; the signing of Neymar didn’t complete them, it fragmented the squad, something that was all too predictable. With too many egos in the dressing room that was bound to happen.
Brendan has worked hard to counter this at Celtic Park.
When he spoke in the last window about wanting his signings to have the right personality that’s what he meant and it’s something Celtic has been excellent at over the last few years; we have big personalities at our club but they fit into the team and play as part of the unit.
PSG has issues, and clearly one of those issues is that they don’t have a domestic challenge.
But we played over a dozen high profile games this year – a little over one third of the total – and PSG played, in effect, just four; the games against Bayern, where there really was nothing at stake as both they and the Germans were favourites to qualify – and the two leg affair against Madrid, which has seen them crash out of the trophy they most wanted to win.
That has to hurt, although I doubt many people at Parkhead have a lot of sympathy for them.
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