Paris Saint-Germain are on the verge of a famous UEFA Champions League triumph as they welcome Manchester United to the Parc des Princes holding a two-goal lead for the conclusion of their round of 16 tie.
• First-leg goals from Presnel Kimpembe – his first in senior football – and Kylian Mbappé made Paris the first French club to win at Old Trafford and inflicted United’s biggest ever home European defeat – they had never previously been beaten by more than one goal. United’s misery was compounded by a late red card for Paul Pogba.
• Both teams have suffered recent round of 16 disappointment. United have not reached the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals since 2013/14, while Paris’s last two campaigns have ended at this stage, at the hands of Barcelona and Real Madrid respectively.
Form guide
Paris
• This is Paris’s seventh successive UEFA Champions League campaign and they have reached the round of 16 on each occasion – although they are yet to match their 1994/95 achievement of reaching the semi-finals.
• After four successive quarter-final appearances between 2013 and 2016, Paris have lost at this stage in each of the last two seasons. In 2017/18 they went down 5-2 on aggregate to Real Madrid (1-3 away, 1-2 home); 12 months earlier, they had looked set for the quarter-finals after a 4-0 first-leg defeat of Barcelona at the Parc des Princes, only to go down 6-1 in Spain – a UEFA Champions League record comeback.
• Paris’s round of 16 record is therefore W4 L2.
• Paris have won three of their six two-legged knockout ties against Premier League clubs although the most recent ended in defeat against United’s local rivals Manchester City in the 2015/16 quarter-finals (2-2 home, 0-1 away). That second leg is also the last UEFA Champions League match in which Paris failed to score; they have found the net in all 23 matches since.
• The French club have twice beaten English opposition at this stage of the UEFA Champions League, overcoming Chelsea in both 2014/15 (1-1 home, 2-2 away) and 2015/16 (2-1 home, 2-1 away).
• Paris have already won at home to English opponents this season, beating Liverpool 2-1 on matchday five – their first success in six matches against English clubs (D3 L2). They lost 3-2 at Anfield in their first Group C game.
• Paris have lost only one of their nine home fixtures against English visitors (W4 D4), 3-0 against Chelsea in the 2004/05 UEFA Champions League group stage. They are on a run of six games without defeat against Premier League opposition in Paris (W3 D3) but have not kept a clean sheet in any of those matches.
• The Parisian club have lost only two of their last 50 European home games since crashing 4-2 to Hapoel Tel-Aviv in the 2006/07 UEFA Cup group stage (W32 D16) – they went down 3-1 to Barcelona in the 2014/15 quarter-finals and 2-1 against Real Madrid in last season’s round of 16 second leg.
• Paris picked up seven points at home in Group C this season, also beating Crvena zvezda 6-1 and drawing 2-2 with Napoli. They are nevertheless without a clean sheet in four UEFA Champions League home games.
• Despite beating Liverpool and Crvena zvezda in their last two group games, and the first-leg success, Paris have still won only four of their last ten UEFA Champions League matches (D2 L4).
• Paris have won all 15 UEFA competition ties when they have recorded a first-leg away victory, most recently against Bayer Leverkusen in the 2013/14 round of 16 when a 4-0 away win preceded a 2-1 home victory at the Parc des Princes. On each of the three occasions that they won the first leg 2-0 away, they did not concede at home (W2 D1).
• Paris’s European shoot-out record is W0 L1:
3-4 v Rangers, 2001/02 UEFA Cup third round
Manchester United
• This is the English club’s 11th round of 16 tie (W6 L4), and their 18th participation in the UEFA Champions League knockout stages overall. Having lost their first two last-16 contests, United won all but one of the next seven before last season’s defeat by Sevilla.
• In 2017/18 United drew the first leg at Sevilla 0-0 but were beaten 2-1 in the home second leg, ending a 21-match unbeaten run in Europe at Old Trafford (W17 D4).
• The draw at Sevilla made it four away games in the round of 16 without a victory for United (D3 L1), whose overall away record at this stage of the UEFA Champions League is W2 D5 L3. They have failed to score in half of those games.
• United won their first two away matches in Group H this season, at Young Boys (3-0) and Juventus (2-1). A 2-1 loss at Valencia on matchday six was only United’s second reverse in their last 12 European away games (W7 D3), with just seven goals conceded during that period; the Valencia contest was the first time they had shipped more than one in any of those matches.
• United have lost just six of their last 27 European matches, home and away (W16 D5); the losses to Valencia and Paris are the first time they have suffered successive defeats since November/December 2012. They last lost three in a row earlier that year in the knockout phase of the UEFA Europa League.
• The Red Devils have won six of their seven two-legged knockout contests against French clubs. Solskjær scored in the sole defeat, against Monaco in the 1997/98 UEFA Champions League quarter-finals (0-0 away, 1-1 home).
• Most recently, United overcame St-Étienne in the round of 32 in their victorious 2016/17 UEFA Europa League campaign, winning 3-0 at home and 1-0 away.
• That made it three successive victories against French sides, home and away, for United, whose eight-match run without defeat (W6 D2) against French clubs was ended in the first leg of this tie. They are unbeaten in their last four trips to France (W2 D2), since a 1-0 loss at LOSC Lille in the 2005/06 UEFA Champions League group stage in a match played at the Stade de France. United have lost only twice in their 13 away games with Ligue 1 clubs (W4 D7).
• This is Solskjær’s first tie in the UEFA Champions League proper as a coach; he oversaw eight qualifiers while in charge of Molde (W3 D4 L1). He took the Norwegian club into the UEFA Europa League group stage in 2012/13, and into the round of 32 of that competition three years later.
• United have never come back from a first-leg home defeat to win the tie in UEFA competition, losing both legs of all three previous contests – in the UEFA Champions League against Bayern München in the 2000/01 quarter-finals (0-1, 1-2) and AC Milan in the 2004/05 round of 16 (0-1, 0-1) and in the 2011/12 UEFA Europa League round of 16 against Athletic Club (2-3, 1-2).
• United’s record in three UEFA penalty shoot-outs is W1 L2:
6-5 v Chelsea, 2007/08 UEFA Champions League final
3-4 v Torpedo Moskva, 1992/93 UEFA Cup first round
4-5 v Videoton, 1984/85 UEFA Cup quarter-finals
Links and trivia
• Ángel Di María spent 2014/15 at United, scoring three goals in 27 Premier League appearances before leaving for Paris.
• Have also played in England:
Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting (Stoke 2017/18)
Lassana Diarra (Chelsea 2005–07, Arsenal 2007/08, Portsmouth 2008/09)
• Have played in France:
Anthony Martial (Lyon 2012/13, Monaco 2013–15)
Sergio Romero (Monaco 2013/14)
• Have played together:
Gianluigi Buffon & Paul Pogba (Juventus 2012–16)
Dani Alves & Alexis Sánchez (Barcelona, 2011–14)
Neymar & Alexis Sánchez (Barcelona, 2013/14)
Layvin Kurzawa & Anthony Martial (Monaco, 2013–15)
Layvin Kurzawa & Sergio Romero (Monaco 2013/14)
• International team-mates:
Gianluigi Buffon, Marco Verratti & Matteo Darmian (Italy)
Alphonse Areola, Pascal Kimpembe, Layvin Kurzawa, Lassana Diarra, Adrien Rabiot, Kylian Mbappé & Paul Pogba, Anthony Martial (France)
Thiago Silva, Marquinhos, Dani Alves, Neymar & Fred (Brazil)
Thomas Meunier & Romelu Lukaku (Belgium)
Juan Bernat & David de Gea, Juan Mata, Ander Herrera (Spain)
Ángel Di María, Leandro Paredes & Sergio Romero, Marcos Rojo (Argentina)
• Pogba, Areola, Kimpembe and Mbappé were all in France’s victorious FIFA World Cup squad last summer.
• Mbappé scored twice in France’s round of 16 win against Rojo’s Argentina at Russia 2018, and was fouled by the United defender to win a penalty.
• Meunier scored Belgium’s opening goal in the third-place play-off win against England at the 2018 World Cup. Phil Jones started the game with Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard coming on at half-time.
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