TURIN – Paris Saint-Germain coach Christophe Galtier’s recipe for success is simple – beat the big teams, and concede few goals. His team had achieved the first, but he was still unhappy about his leaky defence throughout this Champions League campaign.
On Wednesday, a second-half goal by defender Nuno Mendes earned PSG a 2-1 win at Juventus but they were pipped to top spot in Group H by the slimmest of margins after Benfica beat Maccabi Haifa 6-1.
That result meant both Benfica and PSG ended level on 14 points, having drawn their two head-to-head encounters 1-1 and both with a goal difference of nine. But Benfica finished top courtesy of more away goals scored in all games, with a tally of nine compared to PSG’s six after Joao Mario’s strike deep into stoppage time sent them into the last 16 as group winners.
“We’ve beaten Juventus twice and we were very happy until the 92nd minute (when Benfica scored their last goal),” Galtier said.
“If you want to go far in this competition, you have to beat big teams. And then there are details... like when we were winning 7-2 last week (over Maccabi), we stopped playing at the 90th minute. We conceded too many goals from set-pieces, as we did against Haifa. If we’d conceded one goal fewer, we would have finished top of the group.”
An injury-depleted Juventus, who lost 4-3 at Benfica on Oct 26 and will not participate in the knockout stage of the Champions League for the first time since 2013-14, secured the Europa League spot by finishing third on three points.
PSG forward Kylian Mbappe broke the deadlock in Turin in the 13th minute. It was the Frenchman’s seventh goal in the competition this season, after he also netted twice in the reverse fixture in September, and moved him level with Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah at the top of the scoring charts.
Juventus levelled shortly before half-time thanks to a tap-in from defender Leonardo Bonucci.
PSG then sealed the win in the 69th minute when Mbappe found Mendes with an excellent cross between two Juve players for the substitute to score within one minute of coming on.
As Juventus faltered, their Italian rivals AC Milan reached the knockout stage for the first time in nine years with a 4-0 victory over RB Salzburg. They finished second in Group E, three points behind Chelsea.
European champions Real Madrid made light work of Celtic with a 5-1 win to progress to the last 16 as Group F winners. The Spanish giants edged out RB Leipzig by a single point.
“The game was good from the start, we were focused, we didn’t want problems, we wanted to finish (the group) with good feelings and we did it,” their coach Carlo Ancelotti said. REUTERS, AFP
