Is there a better left-back in the world than Nuno Mendes, a better right-back than Acraf Hakimi? That they both play for the same team, Paris Saint-Germain, is another reason why Luis Enrique’s side won the Champions League for the first time in May.
That they both played on Wednesday in Barcelona is a major reason why they won the game, despite missing six of the key players who won that May final against Inter.
Portugal's Mendes, 23, from Sintra near Lisbon, was man of the match in the 2-1 win. Like him, Moroccan Hakimi, 26, was so far advanced they added as much to the attack as the defence.
It’s rare in football to see teams play expansive versions of 4-3-3 where the full-backs push so far wide to make the pitch bigger. PSG did that. Marcus Rashford, nominally being marked by Hakimi, had space if he got the ball – as he did when he superbly set up Barcelona’s opener – yet the Englishman finished on the losing side because PSG’s tactics and personnel won out at the end.
Their full-backs pass forward and run forward. They are direct, they raise the tempo. Hakimi would jump forward to press Barcelona’s left back Gerard Martin, leaving the Ukrainian centre-back Ilya Zabarnyi exposed against Rashford. It was bold and it worked. A defender who had more shots than any player bar Lamine Yamal, no player on the pitch had as many touches as Hakimi’s 86.
Asked about Yamal, Barcelona’s best player, before the match, Hakimi, who was the highest-placed defender on the recent Ballon d’Or list at sixth, said: “Lamine Yamal? He’s going up against the best left-back in the world — Nuno Mendes.”
And so it proved. Yamal played well, he showed some outrageous skill going past three opponents in the first minute and was key as Hansi Flick’s side took the lead through Ferran Torres on 19 minutes in a move involving him, Pedri, Rashford and finished by Torres. Yet it was Mendes, the man Yamal was against, who triumphed.
PSG are a winning machine led by the best coach on the planet. They have money, of course, and they play in Paris, football’s biggest football talent factory, but they have quality throughout and their project is more about the team than the international superstars who were once its focus. Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar have all gone - and PSG improved.
Wednesday’s game was between two of the favourites who are expected to stay the course in the competition.
And they still can, with risk reduced and defeats possible in Uefa's new format. While the venue was unfamiliar, with the Camp Nou is still not ready, the quality on the Olympic Stadium pitch was never doubted. PSG are football’s pre-eminent force, and Barca were heading towards the final last May to face them until a late collapse against Inter. The previous year, PSG knocked Barcelona out at the quarter-final stage.
There’s no love lost between the pair, with Barcelona fans making their feelings loudly known towards PSG. A first half message on the scoreboard warned the 3,000 PSG fans not to throw objects over the dividing fence into the home supporters.
There was even more invective aimed at another Luis who used to play for Barcelona. That wasn’t Luis Enrique, who is admired for being an incredible player and the coach who won the treble with the Catalans a decade ago, but the watching Luis Figo, once Barcelona’s best player, and still not forgiven for switching to Real Madrid a quarter of a century ago.
He, like the rest of the 50,000 crowd, must have marvelled at how a PSG without Ballon d’Or winer Ousmane Dembele, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Desire Doue, Marquinhos and Joao Neves took the game to the Catalans after the home team started so well and grabbed the lead.
Mendes’ superb run through one of the best midfields in football set up Senny Mayulu’s 38th-minute equaliser. Seven minutes earlier, Frenkie de Jong had been unable to stop a Mendes run through the middle and had to bring him down and take a booking, desperately and cynically putting his studs on to Mendes’ Achilles heel. Mendes was simply too fast and too strong.
Hakimi, whose own 29th-minute free-kick curled towards goal, drove forward as often as Mendes. He saw a shot on target blocked by Pau Cubarsi, but it was fitting that one of those runs assisted the 90th-minute winner - Goncalo Ramos converting his pass in front of the travelling fans. Barcelona’s valiant boys had tired, PSG’s men had not.
