He Atlético de Madrid visit this Wednesday (9:00 p.m.) to the Paris Saint-Germain French in the fourth day of the league phase of the 2024-2025 Champions League, a duel that seems crucial for Diego Pablo Simeone’s team to avoid making life definitively complicated in the continental competition after a very poor start, although his rival also needs to add the three points.
The Parc des Princes will be the scene of a demanding match that measures the red and white team’s options in this renewed Champions League after fall resoundingly on the Riyadh Air Metropolitano against Lille (1-3) and the tough defeat in their second match against Benfica in Portugal (4-0).
PSG, which has never been measured, will be the first major European rival of this campaign and against which it will try to alleviate its lack of reliability as a visitor, with only one victory in its last ten outings, a year ago in the group stage against Feyenoord (1-3), and a total of seven defeats. It will also be a duel on the benches of two different and very marked styles such as those of Luis Enrique Martínez and Diego Pablo Simeone.
The two setbacks against theoretically affordable teams cause Atlético to be without much margin for error to continue traveling through Europe this season. And the Madrid team begins the day out of the qualifying positions for the next round, 27th, only with the suffered three points achieved in the debut against the German RB Leipzig, when the qualifying halfway point is reached.
An unimaginable situation at the beginning of the season after the great summer market held at the Metropolitano offices and which has not worked in LaLiga EA Sports either. where the colchoneros are already 10 points behind FC Barcelonawith only a third of the competition played, although it got some air last Sunday after getting rid of UD Las Palmas at home (2-0).
That victory, together with the Copa del Rey-MAPFRE victory against the modest Vic (0-2), brought the good news of two clean sheets, something that Simeone’s team is not achieving latelywhich does not find the key to recover the defensive solidity of the beginning of the season, which seems to be linked to the loss of Robin Le Normand.
Since he suffered a severe head injury in the derby, Atlético has received 10 of the 15 goals concededand he will once again have a test against a PSG with a very markedly offensive style, especially with the speed that Ousmane Démbéle and Bradley Barcola give him, but in the Champions League he is having a hard time finding the net.
In the Parc des Princes, Simeone will continue without Le Normand and with problems behind because José María Giménez is sanctioned, although the best news has been the emergence of Clément Lenglet, already recovered in the last match where he started and who is emerging as the new ‘boss’ at the moment.
Without César Azpilicueta or Marcos Llorente, the Argentine coach must decide the tactical drawing, if you bet on a defensive line of four with Axel Witsel accompanying the French central defender and with Nahuel Molina and Samu Lino on the wings, or going out with the line of five with Reinildo added to the central defenders. According to the chosen scheme, the options of his son Giuliano, who has been the best in recent matches, will grow to play in a highly demanding match.
In the middle, the physique of Rodrigo de Paul and Conor Gallagher, plus captain Koke Resurrección, seem to be chosen to stop the Parisian engine room with the Vitinha, Fabián Ruiz, Joao Neves or Warren Zaïre-Emerywhile up top, Antoine Griezmann, ready to shine in his country, would be accompanied by Julián Álvarez, substitute against Las Palmas.
For its part, the PSG led by the Spanish Luis Enrique Martínez also faces the game with the need to add the three points to avoid falling out of the top eight places. since he is nineteenth with four points as a result of the tight victory against Girona (1-0) and the draw against PSV, both at home, and already with a defeat under their belt, against Arsenal (2-0).
The French champion, eternal candidate for everything, is struggling at the top, where the figure of Kylian Mbappé seems to be increasingly elongated, at least in the Champions League. He has only scored two goals, one an own goal, despite having people like Démbéle, Barcola or Kolo Mouani at the topalthough in Ligue 1, which he dominates for another year, he has already scored 29 goals, almost three per game. The Spaniards Fabián Ruiz and Marco Asensio are emerging as starters in an eleven where the doubt is in the goal, between Gianluigi Donnarumma or the more inexperienced Matvei Safonov.