The Champions League, a football league in Europe, has many admirers all over the world, though it is played by only European teams. There are five top Leagues in Europe, that participate in this competition and each team in the competition is part of the top 4 teams from their respective Leagues, therefore the fans of the winner of this competition, gain the bragging rights all through the season since it is a league of only the Champions in Europe.
This year’s Champions League has seen so much shocking and interesting news since its start in February. FC Barcelona, Spain, one of the giants in the Champions League’s history, was knocked out during the group stages after coming third in their group, an occurrence that was last experienced about getting to 2 decades ago.
PSG in the last transfer window caught the eye of every football fan and was tipped by everyone to be the favourites for the Champions League this year. Messi, the best player in the world currently, was signed for free from FC Barcelona; Donnarumma, the best player of the 2020 European Competition, was also signed from AC Milan for free; Sergio Ramos, one of the veteran defenders in the game for so many years in Spain and Real Madrid also signed for PSG without a dollar in his purchase.
Wijnaldum, former Liverpool midfielder, Hakimi, Inter Milan’s right back in the previous season, were all signed at no cost in the purchase. All these new signings were players in their best form and they were to join a team, that already had superstars like Neymar, Mbappe, Verratti, Di Maria, Kimpembe and so many other players, that are at high levels in their respective positions in the game.
In news some months ago during the balloting for the Champions League Knockout Stages, Manchester United was to play against PSG in the balloting, but there were mistakes in the balloting and so, a new balloting process took place and Real Madrid, the best team in the League’s history, was paired with PSG; a match, that will be filled with so much rivalry and passion with fans of football from all walks of life watching.
Sergio Ramos was to face his immediate former team, where he was the captain; Messi, being FC Barcelona’s legend was also a great rival of Real Madrid during his days at Barca; Neymar also being a rival and Mbappe, who looks forward to playing in Real Madrid one day, all had to feature in this match. The first leg of the Knockout stage was played on the home soil of PSG, where Mbappe scored the only goal of the game at stoppage time, giving PSG the lead before the return leg at Santiago Bernabeau.
PSG went into the second leg with great confidence to qualify from that stage, though, Sergio Ramos was on injury. Their confidence was even boosted, when Mbappe gave them the lead at halftime, giving them a 2-0 goal aggregate lead over Real Madrid. The second half of the second leg started and PSG kept control of the ball with so much confidence till Donnarumma made a mistake, which landed Benzema, Real Madrid’s striker, an equalizer. The equalizer from Benzema gave Real Madrid a new fighting spirit and the PSG players had their spirits dampened because of the way the first equalizer was conceded. This dampened spirit of theirs made them lose concentration, which resulted in conceding another two goals from Benzema, which came so quickly that, they had no control over it.
The match ended in a 2-3 aggregate in favour of Real Madrid, therefore knocking out the star-studded PSG from the Champions League. So much chaos followed the knockout: fans against players and owners against match officials and so on.
On Sunday, March 14, 2022, there was a Ligue 1 match between PSG and Bordeaux at Parc de Princes, PSG, where PSG won after 90 minutes, but this is not a win PSG players would want to remember; whenever the PSG players especially Messi and Neymar touched the ball, the PSG fans whistled and booed at them.
These whistles and boos came out of the fact that the players are responsible for the loss to Real Madrid in the Champions League, which eventually ended their run for the title, as they had high hopes for the title because of the kind of players in their possession. There have been banners and graffities by PSG fans, calling for Messi and Neymar to be out of the club because of their underperformance in the loss at Madrid, with Messi being the centre of criticism, as he missed a penalty in the first leg, which could have given the second leg an extra time fixture between them after Benzema’s hattrick.
Many lovers and admirers of Messi have had their say in this act of the PSG fans as unacceptable behaviour from the fans. The facial expression of Messi and his wife, Antonella from that match shows how lost they feel in the presence of the Parisians at last Sunday’s match, as Messi has lived most of his life at Barca, where he never received such an abysmal act such as these from the fans.
By: Hilbrands