Barcelona Win 3-2 At PSG In Champions League Quarter-final

Andreas Christensen headed the winner as Barcelona beat Paris Saint-Germain 3-2 at the Parc des Princes in Wednesday’s first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie.

Raphinha equalised for Barca with his second goal of the night before Christensen nodded in from a corner in the 77th minute.

In between, PSG had turned the game around as they awoke from a poor first-half display by starting in electrifying fashion after the restart with two goals in six minutes, neither coming from Kylian Mbappe.

Ousmane Dembele struck against his old club, and Vitinha briefly put the French giants in front, only for Barcelona to recover in stunning fashion to take control of the tie.

Christensen’s goal, which came just after he had been introduced as a substitute on his 28th birthday, ended PSG’s 27-game unbeaten run and gives Barca a lead to defend at home in the return next Tuesday.

That second leg will be played at Montjuic, the Catalan club’s temporary home, rather than the Camp Nou, the scene of Barcelona’s incredible 6-1 win over PSG in 2017 and of a lethal Mbappe hat-trick in a 2021 meeting of the teams.

The Parisians were widely seen as the favourites coming into this tie, in large part thanks to the presence of Mbappe and Dembele in attack.

Security measures were reinforced at all of this week’s quarter-finals after the Islamic State group made threats against stadiums.

But the story of this game ended up partly being about the selection decisions of PSG coach Luis Enrique, who was missing the banned Achraf Hakimi but also omitted teenage prodigy Warren Zaire-Emery and gave Marco Asensio a surprise start.

The importance of the occasion for PSG, back in the quarter-finals having been eliminated in the last 16 in five of the previous seven seasons, was clear with Ronaldinho -– a former star for both clubs –- doing a lap of honour ahead of the game and home fans putting on a Star Wars display as the teams came out.

But Paris struggled to live up to it, with Mbappe for once unable to deliver in a big game.

Appearing in the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time in four years and since the departure of Lionel Messi, Barcelona grew into this game and almost went ahead on 20 minutes.

Home goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma came to try to punch away a corner but Robert Lewandowski got there first, only for his header to be cleared off the line by Nuno Mendes.