How PSG’s UCL failure magnifies their prime problems in 2022/23 – scout report

PSG are out of the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League and yet again, it raises major questions about the overall strategy on display from the Qatar-led project.

There’s no shame in dropping out of Europe’s elite competition against Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich but it’s the manner in which their defeat came about — a 3-0 defeat on aggregate and, ultimately, an uninspiring display over two legs — that is, perhaps, the greatest cause of concern for the Ligue 1 leaders.

PSG were denied on a couple of occasions on Wednesday by some brilliant Bayern defensive work. Vitinha had a great opportunity cleared from the goal line by former Ajax and Juventus centre-back Matthijs de Ligt, while 2022 FIFA World Cup hero Lionel Messi was denied a golden opportunity by some clutch Alphonso Davies tackling.

Overall, though, Les Parisiens’ performance was dull, at times lifeless and unbecoming of a team that’d like to see themselves as one of Europe’s elite, but continuously falls short when tasked with doing what elite clubs do and delivering on the grandest stage.

This tactical analysis will not just be a post-mortem of PSG’s UCL exit and tactics on Wednesday, but also a team-focused scout report providing a dissection of wider problems within their team that have plagued the squad this term — and which, certainly, have come to light in recent games, including on Wednesday.

PSG’s defensive approach

It’s been explained and done to death but it’d be impossible to look at this PSG team and their struggles of late, including their drop out of the UCL, without discussing their defensive approach.

At the end of the day, defending with eight/nine outfield players — maximum — due to the lack of defensive output from the star men up top is always going to be a weakness and it’s something that teams have been able to exploit time and time again when coming up against Les Parisiens over the past couple of seasons.

They don’t commit many defensive actions at all, engaging in few defensive duels and pulling off few interceptions, while they’ve got a relatively average PPDA — all signs that point to a team defending rather passively.

The negatives to this versus Bayern were abundantly clear, as Julian Nagelsmann’s men prepared well to exploit their French opponents via the deep half-space areas where you typically found Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi patrolling without the ball, maintaining their team’s defensive structure, sure, but offering very little in terms of actually regaining possession.

In figure 1, we see Bayern switching the play from right to left, getting De Ligt on the ball with Messi as the nearest PSG player. This gives De Ligt plenty of time to weigh up his next move and plan his team’s progression.