Paris Saint-Germain beat Aston Villa 3-1 (video highlights PSG/Aston Villa) this Wednesday at the Parc des Princes in the first leg of the Champions League 2024-2025 quarter-finals (return on April 15). After the match, Paris coach Luis Enrique spoke at a press conference.
Enrique “Now we’re preparing for the return leg.”
Before the game you said you wanted a match as good as against Liverpool, is that what you saw?
“I didn’t say that, I answered a question that asked me what match I’d like the performance to resemble. I think we saw the game we were hoping for, against a regrouped opponent who would look for the counter. We controlled the game, which was our first objective. After that, it’s always difficult to create goal-scoring opportunities against an opponent who plays very low.
And then, if we controlled the game, they managed to score a goal in the first transition. We then reacted well and the team showed that it was prepared for any scenario. The last goal we scored was a bit of icing on the cake, and of course now we’re getting ready for the second leg.”
Yesterday you called on your players to be calm, saying that this was the key to the match, and you managed to turn the score around again.
“We were behind but, unfortunately and fortunately, that’s happened to us before. When that happens, we keep on playing the same way, we keep on dominating the match. We found the resources to come back and the final result reflects our fighting spirit and our efforts.”
Enrique “Our objective will always be the same: to give everything in order to win the game there.”
How do you feel about the second leg of the semi-final?
“If we look at yesterday’s (Tuesday’s) games, we’ll all agree: it makes no sense to talk about favourites in this competition. It doesn’t matter what the result was. It doesn’t matter that we won. Our objective will always be the same: to give everything to win the match over there.
We don’t know how to calculate, I never work the low block. We don’t work it. We have to do what we’ve done, what we know how to do. We want to attack, that’s our weapon and that’s what we’ll try to do at Villa Park.”
Enrique “He has everything a player needs to play for PSG”
What did you think of Désiré Doué’s performance? You seemed angry about his dribbling in the first half.
“I don’t get angry if a player dribbles. For me, any player who dribbles in the opponent’s half is wonderful. He’s a one-on-one specialist and everyone knows that it’s very difficult to play in small spaces. He’s got that quality, he’s got the shot. He has everything a player needs to play for PSG
. I’m lucky to have Kang-In Lee, Bradley Barcola, Gonçalo Ramos, Lucas Hernandez and Warren Zaire-Emery on the bench. That’s the greatness of PSG. But there’s nothing wrong with dribbling in this part of the camp. Because if it works, it will result in a cross or a shot, and if it doesn’t work, the player will press to get the ball back.”
Enrique “He has a lot of personality and experience.”
What did you think of Kvaratskhelia’s performance on Wednesday?
“He’s very versatile. We’ve wanted to recruit him since I arrived here in 2023. He brings together everything the project contains: youth, quality with the ball, without the ball with important defensive runs, a very high level of fitness. He has a great deal of personality and experience. He won the trophy for best player. He should have got it against Liverpool too.”
Do you understand Unai Emery’s optimism for the return leg after today’s match?
“I don’t have anything in particular to say about Unai. It’s normal for him to be optimistic. I’m optimistic too. We’ll go to Birmingham to win, to show our level.”
Enrique “We know this kind of scenario in Ligue 1”
How important is this third goal in the race for qualification?
“The last-minute goal reflects the previous 89 minutes. I repeat, we’re not going to speculate, we’re not going to calculate, we don’t know how to do that. If we want to go through to the semi-finals, we have to win this second match.
There’ll be more space than here in the second leg. We’ve seen this kind of scenario in Ligue 1. Aston Villa will have to leave more space, which sounds interesting to me. It’s going to be a tough game, no doubt, but a very interesting one, as it was at Anfield.”
