This Sunday evening, Paris Saint-Germain drew 2-2 against Rennes in the opening round of the 2026-2027 Ligue 1 season at Roazhon Park. Here are the highs and lows from the match.
The Highs
- ❤️ Torres & Ruiz: World champions to the rescue
A month after Spain’s World Cup triumph, Ferran Torres and Fabian Ruiz teamed up to deliver once again. Coming on at halftime, PSG’s new number 9 scored both goals of the comeback. Fabian Ruiz, introduced at the hour mark, provided the assist for both.
- Torres: 2 goals (71st and 82nd minutes).
- Ruiz: 2 assists.
- PSG were trailing 2-0 when the duo began their work.
The first goal came from a run in behind the defense, perfectly picked out by Ruiz. The second was a header from Torres off another delivery from his compatriot. Ruiz created, Torres finished: two substitutes were enough to completely transform an attack that had previously been struggling.
- Paris refuses to go down without a fight
The performance wasn’t always great, but the character is still there. Trailing 2-0 until the 71st minute—and coming off a loss to Lens a week earlier—PSG could have simply accepted their fate. Instead, they pushed until they clawed their way back.
- 70% possession.
- 1.91 xG compared to Rennes’ 1.07.
- 19 shots and 10 corners.
- 3 big chances created.
This dominance doesn’t erase the match’s flaws, but it reveals a team that keeps generating opportunities even when playing poorly. Paris didn’t win, but once again, they refused to lose.
- Doué: the only starting forward to survive the cut
Luis Enrique changed two members of his attacking trio at halftime. Désiré Doué, for his part, stayed on the pitch. That was no coincidence: he had already been the most enterprising PSG player and continued to take the initiative after the break.
- 5 shots—a PSG record.
- 1 shot on target.
- 0.37 xG.
- One goal disallowed for offside.
Not everything he did was precise, and he lacked clinical finishing—particularly in one promising situation during the second half. However, in an attack that lacked rhythm for long stretches, Doué was the one who most actively tried to unsettle the Rennes defense.
The lows:
- 😡 Dembélé and Kvara: two different bad nights
Both were substituted at halftime, though not for exactly the same reasons. Dembélé found himself in a few good positions but failed to capitalize on them. Kvaratskhelia, meanwhile, almost completely vanished from dangerous areas.
- Dembélé: 3 shots, 1 on target, approx. 0.25 xG.
- Kvaratskhelia: Just 1 shot (blocked), 0.07 xG.
- Combined: 4 shots, zero goals.
- Two substitutions at halftime while Paris was trailing 2-0.
Dembélé primarily lacked sharpness in his decision-making. Kvara appeared drained and had too little impact on the attack. The contrast with Torres—who scored twice after replacing Dembélé—inevitably makes their first-half performances look even more lackluster.
- A tidy midfield… but one lacking drive
Paris moved the ball around extensively without sufficiently shifting the Rennes defensive block. The statistics are almost comical: 665 passes completed with 90% accuracy, yet a 2-0 scoreline in favor of Rennes at the break.
- Vitinha: 86 completed passes out of 93—the highest total of the match.
- Zaïre-Emery and João Neves substituted in the 60th minute.
- Vitinha taken off nine minutes later.
Fabian Ruiz came on and subsequently provided two assists. The challenge, then, was not simply retaining possession, but injecting pace and purpose into the play. Paris controlled possession without dictating the flow of the match. Luis Enrique’s substitutions provided the verticality that had been missing.
- Paris remains too vulnerable when losing possession.
Marquinhos and Pacho do not deserve to be singled out as the sole culprits. Pacho actually recorded six defensive interventions—the highest tally among the Paris players. However, collectively, PSG still left too much space whenever Rennes managed to play their way out of the initial press.
- Rennes scored twice with just 30% possession.
- 1.07 xG and two big chances for the Breton side.
- Rennes won 49 duels compared to Paris’s 44.
The absence of the suspended Nuno Mendes was also felt. Lucas Hernandez performed creditably, but without the Portuguese defender, Paris loses its ability to cover large areas of space and accelerate instantly down the left flank. Rather than an individual failure by Marquinhos or Pacho, it is the team’s defensive balance that still requires fine-tuning.
