Between the Basque Country and Bavaria, it will be decided this Wednesday which will be the first two to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Champions League. In San Sebastian, PSG has a relatively comfortable lead to manage against Real Sociedad – a 2-0 victory in Paris in the first leg. In Munich, Bayern will have to work to overturn the minimal deficit (1-0) they brought from Rome, in the first clash with Lazio. In their own way, the Parisians and Bavarians are changing: PSG will lose Kylian Mbappé and will have to get used to it; Bayern will not (with 99% probability) be German champions and will also have to live with this condition.
The last time Mbappé played 90 minutes was precisely in the first clash with Real Sociedade, at Parque dos Príncipes, in which he scored the first goal. Afterwards, it became known that the French international would not continue at the Parisian club, with Real Madrid as his likely destination, and Luis Enrique immediately began to reduce his playing time: 28 minutes as a substitute used against Nantes, starting with Rennes and replaced in the 65th minute by Gonçalo Ramos when PSG were losing, starting with Monaco and substituted at half-time with the game tied.
The coach of the Portuguese team Nuno Mendes, Danilo Pereira, Vitinha and Gonçalo Ramos had already assumed the need to learn to live without his best scorer, but, in the context of the Champions League, he did not go that far when it came to commenting on a possible inclusion of Mbappé against Real Sociedad. “Is easy. You accept the questions from the journalists and then answer what you want”, commented the Asturian, who, after some mistakes with the translation, left it as unsaid about the ownership, or not, of the French international: “It could be Yes, maybe not, who knows.”
Further north, in the Bavarian capital, Bayern have had difficulty accepting their fall from the German football hierarchy. After 11 titles in a row for the Bavarians, everything indicates that Bayer Leverkusen will win their first title (they are ten points ahead) and the Bavarians, who announced Thomas Tuchel’s departure at the end of the season, want to save their European campaign.
Ahead of them will be a Lazio team that is one of the “surprise guests” of this Champions League and that appears at the Allianz Arena with an advantage thanks to the penalty converted by Ciro Immobile in the first leg. Maurizio Sarri, the Laziale coach, says he is prepared to suffer: “It will be a very tough game, we know the difficulties and we have to have a spirit of sacrifice and know how to suffer.”