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When the Champions League format was revamped, with four French teams included for the first time, few would have expected all four to be confident of reaching the next phase in late January. Even fewer would have expected Brest and Lille to be in the top eight, with PSG sitting just outside the playoff spots.
“We’re going to try to qualify but, if we don’t, the necessary measures will need to be taken,” Luis Enrique cryptically explained after PSG’s defeat to Atlético Madrid in November. His team had produced little from their 71% of possession and Ángel Correa’s last-minute winner left them with just four points from four matches. Since then, PSG’s chances of qualifying have only improved slightly. After a slender defeat by Bayern Munich and a convincing win at RB Salzburg, they are 25th in the 36-team table. Only the top 24 go through.
The first of those “measures” has come in the form of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s arrival from Napoli. At first glance, the Georgian’s signing seems superfluous given Luis Enrique’s wealth of options on the wings; what PSG have sorely lacked this season is an able finisher in the box, even if Gonçalo Ramos’s return from injury has slightly alleviated that concern. Instead, Kvaratskhelia will provide competition for the out-of-form Bradley Barcola, whose winner against Lens on Saturday was his first league goal in two and a half months.
As Luis Enrique has often highlighted, PSG have dominated proceedings in their European matches, barring the defeat in Munich. They have one of the best defensive records in the competition, having conceded six goals in six matches. The problem has been converting possession into clearcut chances and rediscovering their early-season incisiveness. They have scored only six goals in the competition – fewer than the three other French teams.
The gulf between PSG’s performances in Europe and on the domestic stage has not been as wide as their runaway lead in Ligue 1 suggests. They have recently beaten would-be rivals Lyon and Monaco, but they have also been held to frustrating draws by Auxerre and Nantes. Fifth-tier club Espaly came within minutes of pushing the Parisians to a penalty shootout in the cup last week.
With five goals in his last three starts, Ousmane Dembélé has unexpectedly led the line for the league leaders, often playing as a false 9. The France international was dropped for the match against Arsenal and was later relegated to the bench after a needless red card in Munich, an incident that reportedly exacerbated tensions with his manager. When asked about his rapport with Dembélé in December, Luis Enrique said: “We’re not bros, it’s a player-coach relationship,” echoing a sentiment expressed by the player shortly beforehand. Since then, Dembélé has returned to form and finally looks to be fulfilling a senior role in the PSG attack, especially in the wake of Kylian Mbappé’s departure.
Beating Manchester City on Wednesday night will require more than just Dembélé’s newfound efficiency in front of goal, though. A win in Stuttgart next week might be enough for a top-24 finish anyway, but the threat of their customary springtime collapse coming early looms large.
Monaco, meanwhile, have all but surrendered their position as PSG’s main challengers in the league. They are yet to win this year, and their form has hit a new low in the last week, losing in the cup to Reims and then to bottom-placed Montpellier on Friday night.
Once firmly on track to finish among the Champions League’s top eight, Monaco’s downward spiral begin when they gave up all three points in the last five minutes against Benfica at the end of November. The defeat by Marseille three days later came from a similar second-half collapse, with the Monégasques only winning once in the league since that double blow.
Monaco started the season with one of the best defensive records on the continent, with Thilo Kehrer and Wilfried Singo leading them at the back, but they are throwing away points due to unforced errors. With Folarin Balogun sidelined until the end of the season and Breel Embolo off form, the situation is hardly more reassuring in attack either. They are 16th in the Champions League table, so are on course to reach the playoffs but Adi Hütter’s men may need to avoid defeat against both Aston Villa and Inter over the next 10 days.
Lille had a similarly stuttering start to the new year, with stale draws against Nantes and Auxerre threatening to derail their charge for Europe. A dramatic win at the Vélodrome last week in the Coupe de France, though, appears to have reignited their spark. They are unbeaten in all competitions since mid-September and remain well placed to reach the Champions League knockouts, sitting eighth in the table with four wins in their last five.
They showed a lot of fight to win at Marseille last week. Having conceded a last-minute equaliser, Lille dusted themselves off and ousted the hosts thanks to two penalty shootout saves from former Arsenal goalkeeper Vito Mannone. Three days later, they came from behind to beat Nice and climb back up to third in Ligue 1. Led by Jonathan David and an in-form Hákon Haraldsson (the Icelandic midfielder has four goals in his last six appearances), the nordistes have now re-emerged from their brief winter slump.
Given Bruno Génésio’s habit of engineering unlikely results on the European stage – he has already beaten Carlo Ancelotti, Diego Simeone and José Mourinho this season – Lille’s match against Liverpool on Tuesday is far from a foregone conclusion. They travel to Anfield with renewed confidence, before hosting Feyenoord the following week. “We’re up against one of, if not the best team, in Europe. We’re just going to play our game and we’ll see what happens”, explained defender Bafodé Diakité, shortly after scoring the winner against Nice.
Brest, who sit one spot above them in seventh place, have also ensured their involvement in the knockout stages. Their three wins (against Salzburg, Sturm Graz and PSV) have come at the expense of their hopes of repeating last season’s third-place finish in Ligue 1, although their domestic form has since stabilised and relegation is no longer an immediate danger.
Their European success is all the more admirable given they are playing their home games 70 miles away from Brest at Guingamp’s Stade de Roudourou. They are also thriving despite the summer departures of some of last season’s key players (Lilian Brassier, Steve Mounié), as well as the long-term injury absence of standout midfielder Pierre Lees-Melou. He did return to the team in time to volley in an equaliser against Bayer Leverkusen, though.
To round off their history-making campaign, Eric Roy’s men travel to Gelsenkirchen to face a Shakhtar Donetsk side on the brink of elimination, before hosting Real Madrid at the Roudourou. When the fixture list was released, the prospect of hosting the reigning champions was seen as a high-profile finale for Brest’s unlikely foray into continental competition. As the campaign has progressed, though, it has instead begun to look like a prelude to the next part of their European adventure.
