PSG survives Club World Cup’s toughest group and chases double triumph

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When FIFA held its draw for the first expanded Club World Cup, Group B immediately sent permutation calculators into a tizzy. Tournaments like this always have one group that stands out for its difficulty and depth, and Paris Saint-Germain were drawn into it, a quartet perhaps best viewed from the perspective of its home participant.

With all due respect to the Seattle Sounders, the 2022 Concacaf champions who have been among MLS’s most competitive teams each year since their 2009 first-division debut, they entered as a considerable underdog. Despite playing all three games at Lumen Field, their task was daunting. First, the reigning South American champions, Botafogo; then Atlético Madrid, as stingy as they come; and, as a final test, PSG, the freshly crowned champions of Europe.

Even from its perch atop the footballing world, PSG didn’t breeze through its group — although, to be fair, no team has in this tournament.

It sent an early message of intent, rampaging past Atléti 4-0 to claim retribution after a Champions League league phase loss in November. Then came the wake-up call: a 1-0 defeat against Botafogo that sent shockwaves around the world and gave the Brazilian club control over the group entering the final matches.

Monday, as PSG visited the Sounders and Botafogo faced off against an Atléti side needing to flip a goal deficit, the hierarchy ultimately settled to a more expected conclusion. PSG notched a 2-0 win over Seattle, and the men from Madrid eked past Botafogo. Despite a head-to-head loss, it’s Luis Enrique’s side that finishes the stage atop Group B, with Botafogo a worthy runner-up.

Despite the two-goal margin of victory, the clean sheet and the pleasant kickoff temperature of 75 degrees Fahrenheit/24 degrees Celsius, PSG hardly found it to be a stroll in the park.

“Well, we’re trying to compete at the best level, at a high level, every single match,” the PSG manager told DAZN after Monday’s match. “We dominated the match, we deserved to win, but it was tough. It was tight all the time — they pressed well, and they play on the ball at a high level, so it was difficult.”

Luis Enrique and Seattle’s Brian Schmetzer had plenty of praise for each other as PSG advanced. (Buda Mendes / Getty Images)

Though opponents made PSG sweat throughout, the group favorites largely met the moment. Enrique made some rotations against Seattle, but he kept many of his A-team in the lineup to ensure advancement to the knockouts. Gianluigi Donnarumma manned goal, as usual, Achraf Hakimi logged acres of sprints down the flank, Willian Pacho and Marquinhos anchored the backline, and Fabian Ruiz and Vitinha pulled strings in midfield beneath Joao Neves.

That continuity might be part of why they’re looking more capable than some of their European rivals. Ten PSG players have already logged over 180 minutes, with only the center forward slot (between Gonçalo Ramos and Senny Mayulu, fresh off his star-making turn in the Champions League final) seeing some semblance of rotation.

Heat waves, like the one presently sweeping across the United States, are seldom a welcome factor for a free-flowing attacking side. Understandably, Enrique isn’t asking his players to make nearly as many direct attacks, dropping from 4.9 per game in the Champions League to just 1.0 per game in the Club World Cup’s group stage. Instead, their energy has ramped up its already impactful press, working to regain the ball and hold an even greater share of possession: a tournament-high 73.4 percent share through three games.

Even the striker position might look more settled in the knockouts, as Ousmane Dembele has trained with his team over the past week. Absent throughout the group stage with a hamstring injury, his return would help with chance creation as well as converting more of his teammates’ chances into goals. The Ballon d’Or contender led PSG regulars by averaging 2.94 chances created per 90 minutes in their triumphant Champions League run, well above second-ranked Fabián Ruiz’s 2.19 clip. Consider that Dembele also led regular players with 3.25 shots per 90, and it’s no wonder they couldn’t pad scorelines in this group stage.

Though they put four past Jan Oblak in the opener, they struggled to find a bounty of opportunities against compact teams like Botafogo — which rove en masse to defend across the field — and Seattle, which forced PSG to operate down the wings by congesting the midfield. If not for a fortuitous deflection on the opener and a wide-open far post vacated by Seattle’s left back, Nouhou Tolo, in transition on the second, this game might have gone scoreless.

“This is the Club World Cup; it’s impossible to have an easy match,” Enrique told DAZN about the Sounders. “I think they compete really well, they play great football. It was difficult until the last minute.”

Among the first teams to advance from the group stage of this tournament, PSG can resume training with a head start to prepare. After playing every four days in the group, PSG has six days to prepare for its round of 16 matchup against Group A’s runner-up on June 29. Getting Dembele back would be a boost, but there’s an opportunity for Ramos and Mayulu to solidify their cases to be his main alternative.

It wasn’t easy, but no such group ever is. Fresh off of exorcising its Champions League demons, PSG bounced back from its defeat against Botafogo and, thanks to a battered Atléti side, restored itself to the top of the group. No longer burdened by a reputation of being big-game bottlers, PSG enters the knockout phase among the tournament’s outright favorites.

As Enrique’s postgame tone emphasized, that’s partly a status earned by not taking this nascent tournament lightly.

(Top photo: Buda Mendes / Getty Images)

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