"When you look at the last five minutes and see that we lost by three goals, it's a good result in the end," said Nikola Karabatic at the end of this last European meeting before 2022.

The capital club performs a bad operation in the race for the first two places in Group B offering direct access to the quarter-finals of the Champions League since he sees Barça, tied on points, now ahead of him in direct confrontations .

But the other results of the evening on the contrary - defeats of leader Kielce in Porto (29-27) and Veszprem in Flensburg (30-27) - are rather favorable to him.

"We still have our destiny in our hands, retains Nedim Remili. We did not gain the advantage over Barça but we have it over Kielce."

Four first teams are held in two points, which makes this 10th day a rather illegible accounting transaction, like the match.

The tide of the meeting has turned without stopping.

The first Parisian period (17-15) carried by a screaming start (9-3, 10th) followed a lull and then an air gap after returning from the locker room - only three goals scored in nearly twenty minutes (35th-54th ).

"We fished in attack, admitted Nedim Remili, author of 6 goals. We did not manage to conclude actions, we missed shots from six meters. We were not precise enough in our game. But given the energy that we put in defense, it is normal that in attack, we struggle a little ".

The red card received by Catalan left-back Ali Zein and the first penalty of the match stopped by Yann Genty (42nd and 43rd) seemed to change the momentum on the Paris side.

Finally Barça regained control and led by three goals on the edge of the last four minutes.

(27-24).

The bubbling of Coubertin, harangued by Remili, allowed PSG to pick up in a crazy epilogue that suggested that he was even going to win.

"We missed the fact that there is no Luka (Karabatic), it takes away a big element in defense and it forced us to tinker", underlined his brother Nikola about the last minute forfeit of the captain Parisian.

Conversely, the French Olympic champion Dika Mem, uncertain for a long time, punished PSG (4 goals) on his usual long shots.

© 2021 AFP