Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) coach Luis Enrique’s choice was clearly disappointing.
PSG lost 0-1 to Borussia Dortmund in the second leg of the 2023-2024 European Champions League (UCL) semifinals at the Parc des Princes in Paris, France on the 8th. PSG failed to overturn its 0-1 defeat in the first leg, failing to advance to the UCL final.
PSG was somewhat lethargic in the first leg. Even with Kylian Mbappe, the world’s best striker, he failed to threaten Dortmund much. He returned from defeat on the away road, so he needed to change aggressively at home.
In terms of what happened on the field, PSG’s defeat may be the result of the goddess of victory’s choice of Dortmund, as she suffered terrible bad luck hitting the net six times in one game.
However, we need to address the decision of Enrique, who trusted Usman Dembele terribly. Dembele was hired by PSG in a surprise move by Barcelona ahead of this season. He has performed well throughout the season. His combination of flexible dribbling and Mbappe was certainly his weapon. There is no right wing forward who has performed better than Dembele in terms of overall performance of the season.
Dembele’s biggest weakness is its ups and downs. Dembele plays as hard as no player can stop him in a game that shows excellent performance, but he is completely erased in a sluggish game. The second leg against Dortmund was among the latter.
Dembele failed to create a crack in Dortmund’s defense on the right. Having the drawback of poor ball guard compared to his dribbling ability, Dembele showed only his shortcomings throughout the game. According to data from Sofa Score, a soccer statistical media outlet, Dembele committed as many as 34 turnovers on the day. With PSG’s total number of turnovers at 142, Dembele accounted for 24% of the team’s total turnovers.
There was no reason to leave Dembele in the stadium until the end, as he only had turnovers at a time when he needed to score. Dembele only had one shot on the day. From the beginning, Dembele is not even good at scoring. Only when he demonstrates his presence as a breakthrough from the side can he prove his reason for using Dembele. In this match, Dembele dribbled only twice.
Even though Dembele showed the lowest performance of the season, Enrique did not replace Dembele until the end. It was not that there were no players who could play as right wing-forward. Lee Kang-in and Marco Asensio can also play as right wing-forward. Since Lee Kang-in, who was put in after 30 minutes in the second half, showed light movement in the stadium, it could have been a good alternative to put Lee Kang-in on the right side instead of Dembele to solve the attack. 스포츠토토
It is also true that the goalpost turned a blind eye to PSG, but Enrique’s judgment that he did not replace Dembele was also very disappointing.