Real Madrid 3-1 PSG (3-2 aggregate) (Benzema 61′, 77′, 78′ | Mbappe 39′)
After watching Kylian Mbappe, the poster boy of French football and his potential heir as Real Madrid’s superstar-in-chief steal the show at the Bernabeu, Karim Benzema decided to make his mark.
With Real trailing 1-0 on the night and 2-0 on aggregate heading into the final half an hour, something drastic was required to turn the tie back in their favour. Enter Benzema, who struck a 17-minute hat-trick to send his side through to the Champions League quarter-finals and raise familiar questions about PSG’s fragile mentality.
For so long, it had looked as though this, like the first leg in Paris, would be Mbappe’s night. Real know all about Mbappe, of course: he is the chosen one, after all, the star whom Mr Super League himself Florentino Perez has identified as the one to scratch his incurable Galactico itch.
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“Messi and Neymar love to have the ball at their feet and me, I’m the player that can go with my movement without the ball,” Mbappe informed BT pundit Rio Ferdinand in perfect English. “I can go without the ball to create some space for the others and myself too.”
As the youngest member of PSG’s world-renowned front three by a considerable margin, Mbappe’s task when one of the elder statesmen gets the ball is simple: run.
On three occasions in the first-half, Neymar, Messi and then Neymar again, sent Mbappe running and on the third attempt, he opened the scoring, whipping a strike past Thibaut Courtois at his near post.
Neymar and Mbappe combined again after the restart with the Frenchman executing a glorious dummy, reminiscent of Pele’s for Brazil against Uruguay in the 1970 World Cup semi-final, to deceive Courtois before sticking the ball in the net. Add it to the collection of glorious goals cruelly ruled out for offside.
Perhaps that was the turning point, although that would be a charitable interpretation of events for PSG ‘keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma. The Italian, so imperious at Euro 2020 last summer, handed the initiative to Real, passing the ball straight to Vinicius Jr who squared for Benzema to tap home.
The second and third were separated by 10.5 seconds. First Luka Modric, the grand old master of this competition, set Benzema up with a beautifully disguised through pass to fire home the equaliser via a nick off the despairing Marquinhos.
And then straight from PSG’s kick-off came the sucker-punch, with Benzema toe-poking a predatory finish into the bottom corner to leave the visitors stunned.
Mbappe is pre-destined to become the world’s best player over the next decade. But don’t discount Benzema beating him to the Ballon d’Or first.
Real Madrid (4-3-3)
- Courtois 6
- Carvajal 5
- Militao 5
- Alaba 7
- Nacho 6
- Valverde 7
- Kroos 7
- Modric 8
- Asensio 6
- Vinicius Jr 7
- Benzema 10
Subs:
- Camavinga 6
- Vazquez 6
- Rodrygo 6
PSG (4-3-3)
- Donnarumma 5
- Hakimi 6
- Marquinhos 5
- Kimpembe 6
- Mendes 6
- Paredes 6
- Pereira 6
- Verratti 7
- Messi 6
- Mbappe 9
- Neymar 7
Subs:
- Gueye 6
- Di Maria N/A
- Draxler N/A
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