Call it Liverpool’s great Paris Heist. Had a masked Arne Slot snuck into the Louvre and made off with a swag bag including the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, it would have been no more impressive a feat.
This was the Liverpool manager’s tribute to the French gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin, blindsiding Parisian society and contriving to leave with a precious gem of a first leg win.
Minutes after the final whistle, the media room of the Parc des Princes was still in a state of bewilderment, local journalists shaking their heads like outwitted security guards who had lost the crown jewels.
They will be wondering how they have fallen victim to such a smash and grab for the next six days, plotting their recapture of a tie which – although temporarily out of their hands – is clearly retrievable. PSG need their strikers to work on their finishing rather than the intervention of Interpol to turn this around.
Nevertheless, there is a certain artistry as well as a copious amount of luck involved in pulling off such an escapade as Liverpool managed here.
Slot has evidently studied the greatest exponents. When Harvey Elliott tucked away his 87th minute winner, it felt like Liverpool had made two steals – not just the game but a meaningful chapter from Real Madrid’s Champions League handbook.
We have all become acquainted with the strategy by which the multi-European Cup winners are comprehensively outplayed, their goalkeeper plays like he is possessed by the spirits of Gordon Banks, Dino Zoff and Peter Schmeichel, and yet somehow they find a killer instinct when a late chance presents itself.
Manchester City have been annual targets of such grand larceny. Liverpool suffered their torment when last in Paris for the 2022 final, Thibaut Courtois adopting the role which Alisson played with such aplomb here. With respect, for an hour this was more one-sided.
Alisson was the ringleader, of course. His nine saves are the most he has ever made in the Champions League. They were a selection of the great and the good, but the most impressive will not even have been registered, the Brazilian’s uncanny knack of putting distance on all those crosses he flapped away as significant as the shot-stopping.
By his final intervention, the PSG players were waving their arms dementedly, while earlier choruses of hope from a vibrant crowd had been replaced by howls of frustration.
PSG will have to accept a degree of responsibility for their failures in front of goal, of course, especially when they were restricted to shots from distance in the second half.
It’s Paris Fashion Week and Enrique’s strikers tripped along the catwalk. The numbers are still staggering.
Paris St-Germain registered 27 shots to Liverpool’s two. The hosts hit double figures with attempts on target. Elliott’s winner was the visitors’ one and only effort directly at goal.
The overall imbalance was as eye-watering, Liverpool unrecognisable to the side so dominant in the Premier League.
Slot has built a treble bid on possession and control. They had none here until the last five minutes. PSG completed 630 accurate passes to Liverpool measly 220.
Luis Enrique will rewatch this game with as much frustration as pride when noting his attackers enjoyed 51 touches in Liverpool’s penalty area, compared to the 13 of the visitors.
By full time, this was the footballing equivalent of Mohammed Ali versus George Foreman in the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’. Optimistic onlookers from Anfield sensed PSG might punch themselves out of energy.
Slot’s substitutions were the first meaningful jabs which pulled Liverpool off the ropes. When Wataru Endo crunched into a 50-50 and stopped a Paris counter-attack, Slot’s side were finally fighting back. Curtis Jones added more muscle in midfield, and after a tough few weeks Darwin Núñez’s pace had the capacity to turn defence into at least one meaningful attack.
So it proved as the tale of two goalkeepers reflected badly on PSG, Gianluigi Donnarumma disrobed by Elliott’s strike. With respect, Alisson would have picked it up.
The last time Liverpool were in Paris they were left feeling battered and bruised by the combined forces Uefa, French police and a few hundred delinquents.
The irony will not be lost that on this occasion – even if it is just on the pitch – it is the Parisians who feel they have been mugged.
