This Wednesday at 9pm (CET) Paris Saint-Germain will face Liverpool at the Parc des Princes in the first leg of the quarter-finals (second leg on April 14) of the 2025-2026 Champions League. In a press conference, the Reds’ coach Arne Slot spoke about this match and their Parisian opponent.
Slot “Playing a quarter-final is always a special moment”
“Playing a quarter-final is always a special moment. You can’t take the Champions League lightly; PSG is a very good team. I don’t like where we are in the season, so this match is a challenge. PSG and Manchester City are comparable in terms of their playing style.
It’s another opportunity to show that we’re not the same team we were at the Etihad Stadium. Both teams have good players and proved it last season. We deserved to lose 4-0 in the first leg last season, and it was thanks to Alisson that we avoided it. At Anfield, we deserved to win. They thoroughly deserved their European title and were impressive last season, perhaps even more so this season.”
Slot “Details can make all the difference”
“They’re a very good team, certainly, but details can make all the difference. Shots…” “The penalties were decisive last year, and they ended up winning everything. Generally, a team needs to win on penalties in the Champions League or the World Cup to go far.”
What stands out most from his remarks is this desire to repair a damaged image. Slot doesn’t just acknowledge PSG’s quality: he recalls the thrashing they suffered last season, points out that Liverpool had already come close to a similar defeat, and then clings to the idea that certain details could have changed the course of events.
This is where his speech becomes revealing. There’s pride, because he refuses to see his team reduced to the recent debacle against Manchester City. But there’s also a form of justification, almost a protectiveness, as if he were already trying to explain a potential gap in quality. Implicitly, the message is clear: Liverpool wants to bounce back, but Liverpool isn’t approaching this with complete serenity.
