Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City meet at the Parc des Princes in the first leg of their semifinal with bothseeking to take another step towards a first Uefa Champions League title.
While enjoying plenty of domestic success in recent years, both clubs have found European glory harder to come by.Paris did reach last season’s final for the first time only to lose to Bayern München; City are at this stage for only thesecond time, their last three campaigns having foundered in the quarterfinals.
Both clubs overcame German opposition to set up this semifinal, Paris gaining a measure of revenge by defeatingBayern while City got the better of Borussia Dortmund.
Paris or City could become the 23rd side to win the European Cup, and the first new name on the trophy sinceChelsea’s 2012 triumph.
Previous meetings
City’s only previous Uefa Champions League semifinal was secured with a win against Paris in the 2015/16quarterfinals. The first leg at the Parc des Princes finished 2-2, Kevin De Bruyne’s 38th-minute opener for Cityoverturned by goals from Zlatan Ibrahimovic (41) and Adrien Rabiot (59) before Fernandinho’s equaliser 18 minutesfrom time.
De Bruyne got the only goal 14 minutes from time in Manchester as Manuel Pellegrini’s side prevailed against aParis side coached by Laurent Blanc.
De Bruyne, Fernandinho and Sergio Agüero played in both games for City, as did Ángel Di María for Paris. LayvinKurzawa was an unused Paris substitute in both matches, with Marquinhos on the bench in France before playing 90minutes in England, where Presnel Kimpembe was an unused replacement.
Paul Le Guen’s Paris earned a goalless draw against a Manchester City side managed by Mark Hughes at the Cityof Manchester Stadium in the 2008/09 Uefa Cup group stage – City’s first match against a French club. City finishedfirst in Group A with Paris third, both sides progressing to the round of 32. Both eventually lost in the quarterfinals,City going down 4-3 on aggregate to Hamburg while Paris were beaten 3-0 over two legs by Dynamo Kyiv.
Form guide
Paris
This is Paris’s third European Cup semifinal (W1 L1):
1994/95 AC Milan L 0-3 (0-1 h, 0-2 a)
2019/20 Leipzig W 3-0
That 25-year gap between semifinal appearances is a Uefa Champions League record – beating Ajax’s 22-yearabsence between 1997 and 2019.
In 2019/20 Paris became the fifth French team to reach the European Cup final, after Reims (1956, 1959), StÉtienne (1976), Marseille (1991, 1993) and Monaco (2004). Of those, only Marseille, in the inaugural Uefa Champions League final in 1993, lifted the trophy.
Paris would therefore become the third Ligue 1 club to reach multiple finals if they overcome City.
Paris also reached the semifinals of three Uefa Cup Winners’ Cups and one Uefa Cup. Their record in those ties– which all took place between 1993 and 1997 – was W2 L2 with victories in the last two, against Deportivo La Coruñain 1995/96 and Liverpool in 1996/97, meaning last season’s defeat of Leipzig made it three successive victories inEuropean semiffinals.
Paris have won six of their 10 games in this season’s competition, including four in a row before they were held 1-1at home by Barcelona in the round of 16 second leg. That nevertheless completed a 5-2 aggregate success, KylianMbappé having scored a hat-trick in a 4-1 first-leg victory at the Camp Nou.
That win followed group stage victories at home against Leipzig (1-0), away at Manchester United (3-1) and – tobook their round of 16 place as Group H winners – 5-1 at home to Istanbul Basaksehir. Paris also beat the Turkishclub 2-0 away on Matchday 2, in between 2-1 defeats at home to United and away to Leipzig.
Paris then eliminated holders Bayern in the last eight, going through on away goals after a 3-2 first-leg win inGermany was followed by a 1-0 home defeat.
Mbappé has now scored eight goals in this season’s Uefa Champions League, all in the last five matches, and is insecond place in the scoring charts, two behind Erling Haaland, whose Dortmund side were eliminated by City in thequarterfinals.
Ligue 1 champions for the seventh time in eight years in 2019/20, and ninth time overall, Paris also won both domestic cups last season. This is the French side’s ninth successive Uefa Champions League campaign and 13thin total.
Paris reached their first European Cup final last season. They had beaten Dortmund in the round of 16 (1-2 a, 2-0 h),Atalanta in the one-off quarterfinal (2-1) and Leipzig in the semifinal en route to a 1-0 final defeat by Bayern.
The Parisians have now reached the knockout stages on their last nine Uefa Champions League appearances.They suffered three successive last-16 defeats prior to last season.
Under Thomas Tuchel – who was replaced as coach by Mauricio Pochettino in January this year – the French clubfinished first in a section also including Real Madrid, Club Brugge and Galatasaray in 2019/20. They won five of theirsix games, drawing the other, and conceded only two goals to finish five points above Madrid.
Paris had scored in 34 successive Uefa Champions League games, matching the competition record set by Madridbetween 2011 and 2014, before drawing a blank in last season’s final. They found the net in their first nine matchesthis term, and also in 23 successive Uefa Champions League matches at the Parc des Princes, before failing toscore at home to Bayern in the quarterfinal second leg.
Paris have won 18 of their last 28 Uefa Champions League matches (D4 L6). The second-leg defeat by Bayernwas only their fifth in their last 60 European home games (W38 D17), although three of those have come in their lastten matches at the Parc des Princes.
Paris have lost their last two home games against English visitors, having also been beaten 3-1 by ManchesterUnited in the 2018/19 Uefa Champions League round of 16 second leg, a tie they lost on away goals (2-0 a). A 2-1defeat of Liverpool on 28 November 2018 is Paris’s sole win in their last five home games against Premier Leagueclubs.
Paris have now lost three of their 11 home fixtures against English visitors (W4 D4), the other a 3-0 defeat againstChelsea in the 2004/05 Uefa Champions League group stage.
The 2018/19 defeat by United made Paris’s record in two-legged knockout ties with English opponents W3 L4. Theyhave lost the last two; their last aggregate victory came against Chelsea in the 2015/16 Uefa Champions Leagueround of 16, a tie in which they won 2-1 both home and away.