Over the last 10 years or so, no team has suffered more heartbreaking collapses in the Champions League than Paris Saint-Germain. The Ligue 1 monolith has, on three separate occasions, held a two-goal advantage at some point in the second leg of a tie, only to lose in demoralizing fashion. The list doubles as a horror story for PSG fans: First was the famous Barcelona comeback in 2017, in which PSG blew a four-goal lead, then came a two-goal disintegration by Manchester United two seasons later. Finally, in 2022, PSG gave up a hat trick to Karim Benzema and Real Madrid in 17 minutes, turning a 2–0 overall lead into a 3–2 aggregate defeat.
Given all that history, there’s no way PSG should have felt comfortable heading into Tuesday’s second leg of the Champions League quarterfinals against Aston Villa with a 3–1 lead. Something like comfort may have started to creep in after PSG scored the first two goals of Tuesday’s game, giving them a 5–1 lead on aggregate. After all, the Parisians trounced Liverpool in the previous round, and Aston Villa is, on paper, no Liverpool. And yet, fear and panic arrived right on schedule, and it took every single bit of resilience PSG had, along with a healthy dose of Gianluigi Donnarumma goalkeeping heroics, to hang onto narrow a 5–4 aggregate victory.
The Villa comeback started quite inauspiciously for PSG, with the type of goal that serves as a warning siren for the oncoming storm. In the 34th minute, a nice bit of passing interplay left Youri Tielemans, the creator of the move in the first place, with a bit of space on the left side of the attack. The Belgian midfielder attempted to put his shot into the far corner, but PSG defender Willian Pacho was in perfect position to block the shot … directly into the back of the net by his own near post.
Unlucky, and somewhat against the run of play, but the goal gave Villa enough hope heading into halftime to come out roaring. In the 55th minute, John McGinn single-handedly turned that roar as loud as it could go. The Scot received a seemingly innocuous ball deep in his own half, but despite having to cover about 75 yards with most of PSG in front of him, McGinn was able to sprint the entire way to the top of the box before blasting a left footed shot that curled perfectly past a shellshocked Donnarumma, drawing the teams level on the day and putting Villa back where it was at the opening whistle, in need of (at least) two more goals:
It would get one in quick succession: Two minutes later, on a second chance from a corner, Marcus Rashford, who had just missed his own shot a few seconds earlier, hit a couple of shifty dribbles, opening up enough space to cut the ball back to center back Ezri Konsa, who buried his first-touch shot in the bottom corner. Just like that, it was 3–2 Villa, one goal away from forcing extra time:
If one had to pinpoint a single reason for why PSG has moved on and isn’t ruing another capitulation, it’s the aforementioned Donnarumma and his majestic performance. He wasn’t particularly at fault for any of Villa’s goals—perhaps he could have done better on McGinn’s, but that was a hell of a shot, and his defense let him down on the other two—and showed up when PSG most needed him. Time after time, a very game Villa attack flooded the PSG box and uncorked shots of varying levels of quality and danger, and time after time, Donnarumma turned them away. Though he didn’t have much to do in the first half, save for a stout save on a snap shot by Pau Torres following a terrible decision from Mendes, Donnarumma got to work after Villa took a 3–2 lead on the day.
In between McGinn and Konsa scoring, Villa could have had another one, as Rashford received a long ball just inside the halfway line, completely shook off the PSG defense, and fired a cross-goal shot that Donnarumma, with full extension of his giant frame, was able to keep out:
Two minutes later, and after Villa had scored its third on the day, Rashford was at it again, slotting a scorcher of a cross into the box, which was poorly cleared by Marquinhos into the open head of Tielemans. The Belgian tried to double his scoring count on the day to even the aggregate score at five all, but there was Donnarumma again, keeping a bad situation from getting much worse:
On the rare occasion in the second half when Donnarumma was beat, it was Pancho, who was unfortunately at fault for Villa’s first goal, who stepped up to clear a last-minute shot on a direct route to the back of the net. But make no mistake: PSG does not advance without Donnarumma (and without that one Pacho clearance), even if, somewhat perplexingly, Ousmane Dembélé was given the Man of the Match award. (He refused to accept it at first.)
With the win, PSG now heads to its fourth semifinal round in six years, in search of only its second final of Europe’s top club competition. On the other side of that match up awaits either Arsenal, if it can avoid a Parisianesque collapse of its own after winning the first leg 3–0, or Real Madrid, who is never out until it’s out. Though PSG might feel like it can do anything after shaking off some of its ghosts on Tuesday, it will need similar nerves of steel to book a trip to Munich for the final. At times in its quarterfinal melee, it looked like PSG would simply walk over the rest of the tournament, but at other, more fraught times, it looked like the same team that falls short every season. The ghosts of seasons past have been held at bay for now, but they won’t be truly defeated until PSG lifts that trophy.
