Mbappe Seals Late PSG Win Over Negative Real Madrid

Mbappe showed impossible dexterity to get into an impossible space, before finishing brilliantly

- Miguel Delaney

Paris Saint-Germain Mbappe (90+4) 1

Real Madrid 0

Eventually, Paris Saint-Germain get there, maybe before Kylian Mbappe goes there. There was certainly a level of genius about how he got into this space.

You couldn’t quite say the French star stole the game given how utterly dominant his team were, but he did steal the show in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.

Mbappe’s mercurial stoppage-time winner gave PSG a deserved 1-0 win over a dismally defensive Real Madrid, to also ensure Leo Messi’s saved penalty did not have the same cost.

That is always the risk you run when you try and play it so safe. It was an inevitability of Madrid being so conservative, and perhaps an inevitability of the fact this was the first Champions League knock-out tie since the abolition of the away goal rule.

Madrid apparently had no interest in scoring one. It’s also possible, however, that they had no means of scoring one.

The entire match was one grand display of why this stale team so badly need Mbappe. It may well change the future. He changed the tie, brilliantly changing pace to terrorise Real’s back line one last time and finally beat the defiant Thibaut Courtois.

The goalkeeper was one reason why PSG were not out of sight by then.