"It's both beautiful and frustrating, says Luis Enrique. The Paris Saint-Germain manager has a complicated relationship with how his team's league matches play out. When PSG are involved, one team attacks and the other defends. I like attacking a low block, he insists. It is the phase of play that I am most familiar with. I am very respectful of how other teams play. It is a different kind of football from ours, it's atypical, but I understand and accept it."
"Accepting low blocks isn't really a choice for PSG; it is simply their reality, a result of the talent imbalance created by financial imbalance. Their talent usually tells and the low-block is unlocked with varying degrees of difficulty. But it has been tougher this season. PSG have averaged 72.5% possession in Ligue 1 so far this season. Against Nice on Saturday, they had 76.5% of the ball and made 760 passes, compared to just 182 for Nice."
"By half-time, Vitinha had 90 touches of the ball just six fewer than the entire Nice team but PSG struggled to make their domination tell. When the whistle blew for the internal, Nice defender Juma Bah, whose header was cleared off the line by Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, had come closest to scoring. And this game isn't an outlier. PSG had drawn three of their previous four Ligue 1 games."
Paris Saint-Germain routinely face low-block defenders due to a talent imbalance driven by financial disparity. The team averages very high possession figures but often fails to convert control into goals. In the Nice match PSG had 76.5% possession and 760 passes versus 182 for Nice, yet created few clear scoring moments. Vitinha registered 90 touches by half-time, nearly matching the entire opposition, while defensive moments from the opponent produced the clearest danger. Recent league results include multiple draws despite possession dominance, and PSG rank only fifth among Ligue 1 top scorers.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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