Paris Saint-Germain manager Luis Enrique could only admire the spectacle on display Wednesday night at the Olympic Stadium.
What he saw was his PSG side rally for victory against his former team Barcelona to secure a 2-1 win and a perfect record in the Champions League after two matches of the league phase.
Gonçalo Ramos capped the comeback in second-half stoppage time in front of a stunned home crowd, who saw their team lose its first match of the season and for the third time in a row at home to PSG following defeats in the 2021 and 2024 Champions League knockout rounds.
“We’ve seen an excellent game,” Luis Enrique said. “When you see two teams who don’t kick each other, who go out to play and to do damage with the ball, you get a really good spectacle. [Barcelona] were better until their goal. We recovered well. We were better in the second half.
“We played really well. It was difficult at first. Barcelona have a lot of quality. We made mistakes in the first 20 minutes. We were better after the break, we deserved it. It’s a big win. It’s always hard playing against Barça. It’s an important win for confidence. Last year, we struggled in the league phase.”
The game also highlighted the stellar play of PSG outside backs Achraf Hakimi, who set up Ramos for the winning goal, and Nuno Mendes, who assisted on PSG’s opening goal and largely shut down Barça star Lamine Yamal in the second half.
Yamal got off to a promising start Wednesday, awing the crowd with a great run just minutes into the match at Montjuic stadium. But he couldn’t do much more after that, with the 23-year-old Mendes containing him most of the time.
“I’m very pleased to see the younger players thriving in this match; learning, playing well, impressing our fans,” Luis Enrique said after the match. “We consistently play rivals of a really high level. The most important thing for me is our DNA, our attitude — as a squad and as a club — and that’s what we saw today.”
The 18-year-old Yamal made his first start for Barcelona since August because of an injury sustained while playing with Spain’s national team during the international break in September. He came off the bench for the Catalan club in its 2-1 win against Real Sociedad in LaLiga on Sunday.
PSG is the the first team to win three straight road games against Barcelona in major European competitions, while Hansi Flick’s side was looking to win a sixth consecutive match across all competitions.
Luis Enrique did not want to read too much into the result with just two rounds of the Champions League played thus far, and a good chance his team will see Barcelona at some point down the line as the tournament progresses.
“This is just one result so in no case [does it prove anything],” Luis Enrique said. “Barça are among the candidates to win the Champions League. They play really well. They are a top level side. This is just the start of the competition. There are six games left; we will see what happens.
“But I have no doubts because I like how they play. There are not many teams with a clear identity like theirs. Barça are clearly among the favourites with us. But it’s just getting started. Let’s see how everyone arrives to the knockout rounds.”
ESPN’s Sam Marsden and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
