Victory and that’s it. If PSG did not shine on Wednesday for its entry into the new Champions League, it nevertheless ensured the essential by winning 1-0 thanks to a lucky goal from Nuno Mendes in the last minute of regulation time. The Parisians could therefore have a smile at the end of the match, despite an overall disappointing performance.
Speaking to Canal+ after the match, Warren Zaïre-Emery, who started in midfield, preferred to focus on the positive. “We came up against a strong Girona team. We knew it was going to be tough, we had prepared this week by analysing this team. We gave it our all, it shows our strength of character to have pushed throughout the match and scored at the end. I am very proud to be part of this team.”he confided, even dismissing the idea of a bad match.
Vitinha more lucid than Zaire-Emery
“It’s not a missed match, we won it. A small miracle, it’s true, but we had a lot of clear chances, we knew how to push the whole match. It shows that we don’t give up, that we all have character. We’re going to do our best to win every match this season.”he added. For the French international, it was therefore not the time for self-criticism. “How so? All teams have things to improve… We have recruits who integrate well into the team, we continue to create links throughout the season to be as efficient as possible,” he said.
The speech was quite different from the mouth of Vitinha, his partner in midfield, much more lucid and critical of PSG’s performance. “Logically, it wasn’t our best match. We weren’t very good, we didn’t feel like a usual PSG. We had difficulties in the construction, that’s Girona’s merit but we have to see what we did wrong, he explained. In any case, in a match like this, you have to win. We’ll see what we can do differently tactically. For this first Champions League match, there was a lot of desire to play, sometimes it doesn’t help. We have to take a few more risks, play with personality like in Ligue 1. It’s difficult to say in the heat of the moment, but it will be corrected after the match.”
