Atalanta have statistically been the best team in Italy for the last two seasons , they have scored freely and played open, flowing football which has been a joy to watch, but they have finished third each time and it does still feel as though they have a bit of an inferiority complex against the very best teams. They have not beaten Juventus for 30 games, losing 24 of those and have a sub 30% win rate against the other Big 6 teams, it stops them making the next step up, but in truth it is unlikely to happen. A lowly budget and to a degree negative mindset stops that and I saw a recent interview with head coach Gian Piero Gasperiniwhere he highlighted the latter.

“We said qualifying for the Champions League for the second year in a row was our ultimate aim, so after that finishing third or second is about prestige, but the objective remains the same.“I thought we started quite strong this season, then of course the Champions League took some energy out of us." The real points we dropped were in the games with Lazio, Juventus and Inter, but then we never did target the Serie A title.“We’ve raised the bar and are hitting our targets anyway. "We can’t think of the Scudetto.

They did struggle a little over the closing 2-3 weeks of the campaign, losing to Inter (it was before Gasperini's interview) and scoring just 5 times in 5 starts, with the goals drying up after scoring 2.82 pg up to that point and I do worry they might have hit a wall.

 

 

Kylian Mbappe was initially ruled out after suffering an injury against Lyon in their League Cup final victory on July 31, but he returned to  training on Sunday, PSG are at least optimistic he can be involved to some degree and he is giving a thumbs up in every photo/video I have seen of him this week.

 

The won 2-1 coming from behind to take the win with two late goals, there was no "fluidity on offense" for PSG that I referred to above, at least not until Kylian Mbappe changed the game after coming off the bench and supplied Neymar with some much needed help. The Brazilian got precious little prior to that, with Icardi and Pablo Sarabia not only being poor, but not exactly busting a gut to assist Neymar much. The Brazilian superstar had an odd game, looked really good and was head and shoulders (and most of his torso) above everyone else on the pitch, at least until the arrival of Mbappe, but left his shooting boots in Paris and was guilty of two unbelievable misses , the first is difficult to explain if you did not see it. He was through on goal and just had to slide the ball into the net and somehow missed by some five metres, I must have watched the incident 20 times and am still not certain how he managed it !

 

But he kept his head up and continued to try and drive his largely lethargic team mates forward, his 16 completed dribbles were the most in a Champions League game since Lionel Messi for Barcelona against Manchester United in April 2008 and was when Messi and Barce were good ! Only joking, at least about the player !

Mbappe is starting tonight and I think we will see a more upbeat showing from the other nine players , at the end of the day if Neymar had taken his chances and on almost any other occasion he might have scored a hat-trick, PSG would have eased home. Angel Di Maria is also available again after frustratingly sitting out his ban against Atalanta on the sidelines.

Leipzig beat Atletico Madrid in the quarter finals and I do not want to take anything away from them, they were deserved winners , but it was a cowardly performance from the Spanish side who, after equalising and turning the tide of the game in their favour and looking set to win, went back into their defensive /spoiler shell and were rightly punished.

Ahead of that game I spoke about Leipzig's "issues" ........... The extended season and break has hardly helped RB Leipzig much, the first has cost them star player Timo Werner who has already moved to Chelsea and the second has hindered their high intensity hard press which is difficult to just turn off and on and requires the team to be at full fitness, which they are not . Four of Leipzig's last eight Champions League goals have come from the penalty spot and of the four from open play, two were provided by Werner. This is a step up for RBL the only other top eight team they have faced in the competition is Lyon and they conceded twice in each (2-2, 0-2).  They have a number of key players carrying knocks, if Yussuf Poulsen were to miss out, for instance, they would be without 39 goals and 26 assists (the totals he and Werner have amassed this season).

Poulson played and Leipzig were brave, but not asked enough questions offensively by Atletico and that should not be the case this evening.

Paris SG have progressed from all three of their European knockout ties with German opponents, including eliminating Borussia Dortmund in this year’s Champions League Last 16.They have scored in 33 straight CL games and will equal Real Madrid's all time record should they score this evening. I think they will and take the classy big game players of PSG to step up.