UCL: PSG, Bayern clash best ever match, says Enrique
Paris Saint-Germain head coach, Luis Enrique, has described his team’s dramatic 5-4 victory over Bayern Munich as the most thrilling match of his managerial career.
Tuesday’s first-leg clash in Paris produced nine goals, setting a new record for the highest-scoring Champions League semifinal and matching the second-highest total ever in any knockout game in the competition’s history.
Luis Enrique, who previously managed Spain and Barcelona, where he guided a star-studded trio of Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez and Neymar to Champions League success, said nothing he has experienced in football compares to the spectacle at the Parc des Princes.
“I have never seen a match with this kind of intensity,” Luis Enrique said (via ESPN). “This is not the time to point out flaws; we just need to congratulate everyone.
“We deserved to win, we deserved to draw and we deserved to lose today. It was a fantastic match. It has been, without a doubt, the best match I have ever been involved in as a coach.”
PSG surged into a commanding position early in the second half, racing to a 5-2 lead thanks to two goals apiece from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Ousmane Dembélé at the Parc des Princes.
However, Bayern responded strongly to reduce the deficit and set up a tense second leg in Munich.
Defender Dayot Upamecano gave the German side renewed hope with a header from Joshua Kimmich’s free-kick midway through the second half, before Luis Díaz struck to cut the gap to just one goal heading into the return fixture.
Luis Enrique admitted the match left him physically drained despite not being on the pitch.
“I’m so tired, and I didn’t run a single kilometer,” he said. “So I don’t know how the players are feeling.”
Looking ahead to the decisive second leg, he added, “I just asked my staff, ‘How many goals do you think we will need to win this match?’ They said, ‘Minimum three.’ Bayern Munich in their stadium are even stronger, but we will try and show the same mentality.”
In the other semifinal, Atlético Madrid hosts Arsenal on Wednesday, while the final is scheduled to take place in Budapest, Hungary, on May 30.
