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Al Khelaifi Very tough with Real Madrid after having lunch with Florentino Pérez: "We almost have no relationship"
Paris distributed rose petals on the tables of its restaurants when Madrid arrived for Valentine's Day.
A day later, she was dying of love in front of the soccer player for whom she sighs inconsolably.
Kylian Mbappé leaves him in the abyss, after an act in which it was clear that the past and the future coexist in a team that Madrid wants to snatch the second.
The treasure of youth levitates on the legs of this young Parisian in front of the worn-out Messi.
There are no possible Fausts in football, nor pacts with the devil.
Maradona tried to do it until he prematurely self-destructed.
Messi doesn't need it.
His work will absolve him.
Mbappé has his in front in white, but before that white will suffer in the return leg at the Bernabéu as if it were the holy shroud.
The motivation that Madrid's visit represented leaves no doubt, because this match was not Rennes's.
Messi is not the one he was.
He plays, he plays... he walks and walks... Of the rhythm changes of the past, nothing;
of the shots, nothing.
The passes remain, the shipments like the one that led to Mbappé's first chance, because the footballer's vision is the longest, even the virtue that improves the most over time.
When the speed is lost, the step back comes.
The Messi of Paris has given it, but that Messi is not Messi.
He is one more.
A player who misses from the penalty spot.
It wasn't the first time, but this wasn't just any time.
The epicenter of PSG does not gravitate, therefore, where the Argentine moves.
He moves, as if guided by georadar, wherever Mbappé does.
The left is his starting point, but not always his place, with freedom of movement like all the attackers on this team.
In front there is no more obligation than to express talent.
Against Madrid, they exerted pressure in some compromised ball exits, but in other games that release reaches obscene heights.
From his starting point, Mbappé turned Carvajal into a rag doll.
At first, he cleaned it up with an electric dribble.
Finally, he dragged him to a penalty that was the prelude to the goal.
Mbappé shook hands with Messi, who stood in the place of the sentence, but his mind had remained in the waiting room.
The execution of Madrid did not correspond to him.
It was for the best and it would take until added time, the time that has always been white.
Not yesterday.
The Frenchman advances as if he were levitating, hardly touching the grass, unlike Vinicius, another footballer of his kind, but who gains meters as if he were doing it in a wheat field, kills against kills without defeating himself.
It is a key duel in this tie, because it is about destabilizing weapons in both teams and because of what can happen if the future brings them together in Madrid.
Whether they play or not is the same.
Ask Florentino, in the box in Paris after a good-natured meal with Al-Khelaifi, both with marked cards: Mbappé and the Super League.
For Madrid it could not be a surprise where the danger would come from.
Mbappe is not cheating.
He is a footballer of a pattern, but unique.
Carvajal suffered the announced curse several times again, with little help, until Militao unfolded or even Casemiro was delayed a few meters.
Asensio was the one who had to collaborate, especially since the additions of Nuno Mendes created two-on-one situations, but the Balearic's defensive dynamics are scarce.
The Frenchman persisted, but perhaps he should have done it with more will to finish by himself.
When he was closest in the first half, Courtois beat him heads-up.
Shortly after the break, the Belgian goalkeeper returned to stop one of his shots from the edge of the box.
Along with Militao, he was the best in Madrid, a condition that he corroborated by stopping Messi's penalty.
He resisted until the last shot.
Madrid, in reality, had done nothing to express it, withdrawn to excess.
Like other times, he gave up high pressure, a fact that allowed PSG to have a lot of possession but few spaces, except for those that Mbappé sought when he was able to eliminate pieces.
Verratti maneuvered more than was convenient, in collaboration with Messi, a fourth midfielder for many minutes, escorted by Paredes and Danilo.
It was an ultra-conservative half hour for Madrid, in which they suffered less fire than could be expected due to the rival's profile, although playing so much without the ball has risks: Casemiro and Mendy are booked, they will not play the second leg.
A serious setback for Ancelotti.
The Italian put Benzema on the field from the start, but the decision did not fit in with the approach.
He left at the end replaced by Bale without ceasing to be testimonial.
At the Bernabéu, Ancelotti knows that he cannot play that way.
Mbappé's goal, a dry cross shot, dismantled his castle and now he must leave the battlements with the rosary in his hand.
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