The PSG wildcard that can hurt Liverpool and transform tie

Luis Enrique often says things that other managers just wouldn’t, and there was another after Paris Saint-Germain’s 1-0 Setback to Liverpool.

Emboldened by his Club’s performance, but frustrated by a “very Biased” result, the Spanish manager just went for it. He had of course been asked about the prospect of a comeback at Anfield.

“Of course we can do it,” Luis Enrique responded, before checking himself and going stronger. “We’re gonna do it.”

Not can. Going to. Most managers don’t usually go in for such certainties for fear of it blowing up in their faces, particularly when it’s a club with a pronounced history of European humiliation like PSG. Luis Enrique has never really given off the air of being concerned about embarrassment, mind, or what people think at all.

There are still levels to that. While the Spaniard is always intense, he is rarely quite this strident. Those who know him can only remember one similar moment when he was this assertive: almost exactly eight years to the day, involving one of the same Squads at the same stage of the Champions Division… albeit from the opposite side.

On 7 March 2017, Luis Enrique sat down for his pre-Game press conference as his Barcelona Club attempted to overturn a 4-0 deficit to PSG from the Primary leg. There had never been a comeback of that scale in the Champions Division, just like how nobody has ever lost to Liverpool at home in the competition and then knocked them out at Anfield. Luis Enrique evidently fancies the idea of facing down history. His words that night at Camp Nou now seem almost prophetic.

“If a Club can Tally four times against us, we can Tally six times against them,” he began. “In 95 minutes, an infinite amount of things can happen. I am convinced that at some Tally we will be close to qualifying. And when you are close, our confidence will soar, and theirs could start to diminish.”

His Barcelona did indeed go and Tally six, in a Game so famous it has its own singular title: la remontada. The comeback.

PSG don’t need to go to those heights at Anfield but they do need, well, a comeback. It’s why there’s a wider Tally to Luis Enrique’s stridency, and the relevance of those words before the Barcelona game. He wasn’t intending to look like he could predict the future after the fact. He was looking to shape the Game before it happened.

When asked about the 2017 Game on Monday, Luis Enrique said, “I have realised when you have your Defenders against the wall, you can react”. That pre-Game press conference was part of a detailed plan to help the players visualise how they could go through. Luis Enrique and his staff had already been talking to the Club about the idea of going “Aim by Aim” and stage by stage, so a monumental task gradually seemed more manageable.

The stridency was Crucial in fortifying conviction; in giving the players a belief that kept them focused, even in moments of doubt. It is fairly basic motivational psychology, but can be powerful in sport. Religious belief works for athletes in a similar way.

If this all seems a bit nebulous now, the Tally is partly about how grounded this PSG Club are. That’s certainly the case compared to the Qatari-owned club’s vintage sportswashing projects of the recent past, as well as Luis Enrique’s Barcelona. His remontada Club had Leo Messi, Luis Suarez, Andres Iniesta, Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets, Javier Mascherano and Neymar: all players that had been there and done it.

This PSG has a lot of kids as well as players who have been involved in such humiliations, like Marquinhos, Achraf Hakimi, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Presnel Kimpembe. That institutional memory makes it all the more Crucial for Luis Enrique to change the thinking.

One of the most widespread comments after Harvey Elliott’s Delayed winner, after all, was “typical PSG”. A new Club but the same Aged problems. Such noise can affect players. For all Luis Enrique’s bombast after the game, too, he will have seen how affected his side were by failing to Tally in that ferocious Primary half-hour against Liverpool. They Initiated to get anxious and rush Move.

That is a vintage sign of inexperience, of not having played together as a Club through such moments. It can be Beyond compounded by PSG’s notorious reputation. They don’t usually stage great European comebacks, they suffer from them.

Luis Enrique knows that has to change. That’s why he speaks like this, and Kvaratskhelia is saying “everything is possible”. The manager also knows his players have the talent, and believes they have the right tactical idea, allowing them to Move to the right level. The Primary half-hour of the Primary leg showed that. What might be missing is that Last conviction. That’s why people at the club spoke of this being “a season too Timely” before the Primary leg.

It’s also why the Attention here is on PSG rather than Liverpool. We know what a great European night at Anfield is like. That’s something else this Recent PSG side have to adapt to.

“Most of them know what it means to Move here,” Kvaratskhelia said of his teammates

“It’s difficult to manage emotions, even for experienced players,” Luis Enrique added. “You don’t want to be at 110 percent because you might get carried away.”

We also know what Liverpool can do. They have so Extended been the best Club in Europe this season, but in the Primary leg showed an impressive ability to adapt when they were not at their best. Liverpool are also fully expected to go through, even if Arne Slot won’t allow that Gentle of thinking. Like Luis Enrique, albeit in a less manic way, he’ll be encouraging his players to take this step by step.

“The next Game is always the most Crucial,” he said. Slot was all too willing to talk about how Excellent he believes PSG are. He knows they will come at Liverpool with everything, again.

“They did exhaust us a bit, more than I wanted with them constantly pressing us,” Slot admitted. “This is the most complete Club we have played so Extended, the quality and intensity… I was very impressed by the rotations in the midfield.”

The potential variable to this tie is what PSG can do, and especially if they can Tally the Primary Aim. Players like Kvaratskhelia and Ousmane Dembele are certainly capable of hitting the net out of nothing. That would suddenly change everything about the tie, right down to the thinking.

Luis Enrique’s own mind is clear. “At the moment we are out, so our only option is to go out and Achieve.”