Kolkata: “We suffered a lot in Paris but football is that way. Unfair at times. Today, we were lucky.” Luis Enrique’s words summed up a night where Paris St-Germain (PSG) and Liverpool needed to be separated by penalties but they will strike a deeper chord with Ousmane Dembélé, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Nuno Mendes. Redemption is doubly satisfying when you know how football can trick you.
Having shackled Mo Salah in Paris, Mendes had to live with not being able to track Harvey Elliott for Liverpool’s smash-and-grab last week. Mendes reined in Salah again; sticking out a leg to deny him early, shielding the ball to win a foul and a headed clearance away from the Egyptian in 90+4 being the highlights. And the left-back started the move for the 1-0 win on Tuesday.
In Paris, Donnarumma was not needed for most of the match but couldn’t help PSG when they did. Adjudged best in Euro 2020, Donnarumma’s list of Champions League howlers for PSG include goals against Real Madrid, Barcelona and Arsenal. The French media once called him a thug and fans blamed him for the first-leg loss to Barcelona last term.
At Anfield, Donnarumma was the hero who stretched this round of 16 tie to the tie-breaker. There, the big PSG goalie denied Darwin Nunez by going to his left and getting both hands and diving in the opposite direction to thwart Curtis Jones. As he stopped Jones’s shot, Dembélé was caught by television cameras jumping in joy.
Dembélé’s penalty was between Donnarumma’s saves making it the biggest moment for PSG in the tie-breaker. He scored and hugged his keeper. It was Dembélé’s goal in the 12th minute that had evened the tie at 1-1 and after Désiré Doué sent Alisson the wrong way to win the shootout 4-1, PSG bounced in a corner of a foreign field. Never before have Liverpool lost a Champions League tie-breaker. Never before had they won the first-leg and had been eliminated.
Graceful in his movements, Dembélé is good with his feet and can play anywhere in PSG’s fluid, interchanging forward-line. He usually starts as a false nine now but it is the ability to drop deep that can pull the opposition out of shape. He did that in the eighth minute giving Vitinha an option the midfielder did not take. Mendes did and as Ibrahima Konate followed Vitinha to cut out a pass, Dembélé swung the ball in the opposite direction to Bradley Barcola. Following up, Dembele scored with a tap-in as Konate pushed away Barcola’s delivery from Alisson but not far enough. Having stirred up a storm from the off, Liverpool were hit by lightning.
It could have struck twice but Dembélé first touch was heavy. It fit a contest between two of Europe’s best — Liverpool topped the 36-team Champions League table and PSG had come on the back of 14 successive away wins — that almost immediately, Donnarumma would need to palm away a Salah effort. Dembélé helped in defending duties and tested Alisson in extra-time. Before that, Trent Alexander-Arnold came close twice, Dominik Szoboszlai had a goal disallowed for off-side, Jarell Quansah headed into the upright and was off target with another free header.
Dembélé has 21 goals in 2025, the best among Europe’s top five, and 29 in 36 matches this season. He had six last term. “We all know of his quality on the wings and now we are discovering his quality in the middle,” PSG coach Enrique said last month.
It’s been some shift for the player who struggled at Barcelona (40 goals in five seasons) with the tag of being the world’s second most expensive transfer at €135m. “Dembélé is a better player than Neymar,” then Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu had said.
And there were injuries. Dembélé missed 96 matches in his first four seasons at Barcelona, as per Sky Sports. He played only 127 of 228 La Liga matches meaning for 63% of Barcelona’s league games, he was unavailable.
In 2022, Barcelona exiled him from the first team as contract talks hit a dead end. Dembélé called it blackmail before signing a two-year deal and was finally living up to his potential under Xavi. But not sure that Barcelona would not trade him and Gavi for Kylian Mbappe or sell him to boost depleted cash reserves, Dembele triggered his release €50m clause as PSG came calling in 2023 summer.
The player who couldn’t deal with being the replacement for Neymar Jr is coping alright as the one PSG got when they knew Mbappe would not stay. Precisely because it is not projected that way. PSG are now a squad of young players – Doué and Warren Zaïre-Emery were not born when Liverpool scripted the miracle of Istanbul. In this rebuilding project, the ensemble is more important than “flashy bling, bling” individuals. This bunch defends solidly and have the mental steel PSG were not known for. All this also allows Dembélé to be a good player who loves the ball.
Leave feedback about this