Galtier: PSG didn’t “fight with all their strength”
PSG fell to Bayern Munich 2-0 in the second leg of the Champions League, eliminating them from the tournament at the last-16 stage 3-0 on aggregate.
PSG has been eliminated from the Champions League on a 3-0 aggregate after losing in the second leg to Bayern Munich on Wednesday. PSG failed to score in both legs of a knockout tie in the competition for the first time since their 1995 semfinal against Milan.
Galtier regrets not playing with full strength
Though PSG was playing without star Neymar and Presnel Kimpembe, who are both out for the season, they still had superstars Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi in the lineup. Yet they still failed to score over both legs and watched their hopes of clinching the top European title crumble away for the fifth time in seven years.
“I’ll leave it to people to judge if we are ‘only’ champions, as you say, if it’s a bad season,” said Galtier. “My big regret is that we didn’t fight with all our strength in these two matches.”
In the beginning, France came out strong and Mbappé had an early chance to score, but missed. Shortly after, Messi had a shot blocked by Bayern’s Yann Sommer.
“We didn’t open the scoring when we had the chance. We did well in the first half, we felt we could match our opponents, but we didn’t put away our chances,” said Galtier.
It was Bayern who instead opened the scoring in the 61st minute, when Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting tapped it into the net. A late second goal in the 89th minute by Serge Gnarby sealed the victory. Galtier was disappointed in his side’s defending, calling the second-half goal “stupid” and admitting that Bayern had put the pressure on.
Not only were they missing Neymar and Kimpembe though, PSG also had to deal with injuries on defense. Captain Marquinhos came off the field with a rib injury before halftime. Even his replacement, Nordi Mukiele was not fully healthy and could not play for long.
“It’s a big disappointment,” Galtier said. “I don’t know if it’s a lesson to be learned, but there’s a lot of frustration. If we’d scored first, it would have been different, but we didn’t.”
Accepting defeat and moving on
Galtier refused to speculate on his future with PSG after the Champions League exit. Instead, he is focused on winning the Ligue 1 title. PSG currently sits atop the table.
“We have to carry on in the league. Everyone is disappointed, not least me,” said Galtier. “We’re going to make sure to win the [Ligue 1] title. We must not play down things. The league title is a league title. We still have a lot of matches to play.”