PSG will play the second leg away from home, but has a two-goal lead over Aston Villa.
PSG took an important step towards the Liga dos Campeões semifinals this Wednesday (4/9). At the Parc des Princes, Paris hosted Aston Villa and, in a comeback, won 3-1, opening up a good lead in the quarterfinals. Rogers scored for the visitors, while Doué, Kvaratskhelia and Nuno Mendes scored for PSG, who can now even lose by a goal to advance to the semifinals.
The winner will face the winner of the duel between Real Madrid and Arsenal – England won the first leg 3-0. The premise of the duel was clear from the first minutes. While PSG, encouraged by their fans, sought to maintain pressure and control the action, Aston Villa would try to counterattack. The tone, then, was exactly that, even though the home team was unable to create clear chances. In the best of them, Dembelé let fly and forced Dibu Martínez to palm the ball away for a corner.
At 35′, however, the visitors’ strategy paid off. That was when McGinn led a fast counterattack and opened up the left for Rashford. He noticed Tielemans’s speed and passed to the Belgian, who crossed low. Rogers, from the six-yard box, just completed the move, opening the scoring. The equalizer, however, was not long in coming.
PSG cornered the English team and began to force shots. In one of them, Dibu hesitated and almost made a mistake, with Digne sending the ball out for a corner. Following the move, Doué cut to the right and scored a great goal, hitting the corner of Dibu’s goal, who could do nothing, at 39′.
In the second half, coach Unai Emery opted to take off right-back Cash, who was already on a yellow card. But the change didn’t work out very well. After all, after just 4 minutes, Kvaratskhelia was brought in on the left, charged, left the full-back talking to himself with a futsal dribble and stuck the ball in with his left foot. Once again, Dibu could only watch the ball hit the post and go in. Great goal!
PSG managed to score the third goal, with Hakimi, but the Moroccan was in an offside position. Aston Villa, in turn, tried to attack sporadically, but could not get the equalizer, with the French defense working well. In the end, at 45+1 minutes, Paris took another important step towards the semifinals: Nuno Mendes was one-on-one with the goal, dribbled past Dibu and, with his right foot, scored the third. At the final whistle, there was celebration in the French capital.
