Forty-seven seconds after coming on, with less than three minutes of this Champions League knockout tie left, Harvey Elliott put Liverpool ahead in Paris.
The Premier League leaders had been comprehensively outplayed by Paris Saint-Germain; cut apart with such violence that you felt like calling a helpline. Elliott’s shot was their first shot on target — and that was all that mattered.
Arne Slot’s side had survived two early let-offs — a Khvicha Kvaratskhelia goal ruled out after his left heel was ruled to be offside and Ibrahima Konate staying on the pitch after a VAR review of a possible foul on Bradley Barcola — and went in level at half time.
And then — thanks, in large part, to the heroics of goalkeeper Alisson Becker and their defensive resilience — Liverpool weathered the Parisian storm and then snuck the most unlikely of goals to take a 1-0 lead back to Anfield for the second leg on March 11.
Andy Jones, Jack Lang and Mark Carey dissect the key talking points from Paris…
All hail Alisson
There have been plenty of memorable performances from Alisson Becker on European nights during his Liverpool career, but tonight’s display in the Parc des Princes must surely be at the top of the list.
The lacklustre display from Slot’s side meant that Alisson was kept busy from start to finish, with ten shots on his goal being the most active that the Brazilian international has been all season. In fact, he has not been kept more busy in domestic or European competition since he joined the club in 2018-19.
(Geoffroy van der Hasselt/AFP via Getty Images)
With the quality of efforts that PSG generated, Liverpool were expected to conceded close to two goals on Wednesday evening. Thanks to their imperious goalkeeper, they are still in the tie having come away from Paris with an unlikely victory and a clean sheet.
From one-v-one saves against Kvaratskhelia to diving reaches following curled efforts from Desire Doue, Alisson put on a goalkeeping clinic and showcased the variety of his skillset to shut Luis Enrique’s side out.
Tonight’s display showed exactly why he is still regarded as one of the best goalkeepers in the world.
Mark Carey
The definition of a smash and grab?
After being second best for virtually the entire night, Elliott’s first touch proved the difference in a game Liverpool would have been lucky to draw.
Slot’s decision to take off his main goal threat Mohamed Salah for Elliott looked like he was happy to accept a 0-0 draw. How wrong that proved to be.
(Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)
The man who made it happen, though, was Darwin Nunez who was summoned from the bench with Liverpool desperately needing an outlet to bypass PSG’s relentless press.
It was the forward’s first noteworthy substitute appearance (he featured briefly against Newcastle) since his head coach voiced his disappointment with his striker’s effort levels against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa.
It came from a long ball. Nunez won the initial header and then found a yard of space on the edge of the home side’s box. It would have been easy for the Uruguay international to shoot but instead he spotted the run of Elliott to his right.
The weight was perfect, and Elliott did the rest, taking his chance with supreme confidence and delivering when it mattered most.
Andy Jones
How did PSG rattle the Premier League leaders?
Perhaps we should have been expecting the onslaught. PSG, after all, came into this game on the back of 10 straight wins in all competitions. Their previous four matches had yielded 21 goals. There was, even before kick-off, the feeling that a promising season had transmuted into something altogether more precious — that the Luis Enrique project was creeping up towards terminal velocity.
Still, the verve of the French side’s first-half display was breathtaking.
The midfield set the stage. That’s a sentence that rarely got an outing during PSG’s years of comic decadence — we’re talking the period after the excellent Motta-Verratti-Matuidi triad — but things have moved on. Fabian Ruiz, Vitinha and Joao Neves were all excellent here, twisting Liverpool into all sorts of awkward shapes, then squeezing the life out of any counter-attacks whenever the ball was lost.
It rarely took PSG long to regain possession. When they did, their front three essentially took it in turns to put on a show.
Ousmane Dembele careened down the right and created a good chance for Neves, then saw a shot deflected wide after nutmegging Alexis MacAllister. Kvaratskhelia sat MacAllister down with a textbook step-over, had a fine strike disallowed for a narrow offside, then drew a superb save from Alisson after jinking past three men.
Another Dembele attack… (Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
Barcola, a lovely winger with the bendy physique of a Cheestring, had two opportunities to score the opener in one move just before the break. His finishing was off, but the pass that had started the move, to Dembele, was so pretty and unexpected that it seemed to fry the mind of Virgil van Dijk, who simply ran off in the opposite direction, like a man chasing the wrong bus.
Things followed a similar pattern in the second half, with substitute Desire Doue posing Liverpool a few problems of his own. On another night, with another goalkeeper in the away goal, this might have been a shellacking. In the end, Elliott’s sucker punch cast the evening in a different light, but Luis Enrique and his charges will know that they have all the tools to find a way back into this tie when the sides reconvene at Anfield.
Jack Lang
Was the first half Liverpool’s worst 45 minutes this season?
Yes — by a distance! They were outworked, out-thought and outplayed by Luis Enrique’s side.
If Arne Slot was hoping to see his side energetic and refreshed after not playing at the weekend given their third-round FA Cup exit, Liverpool were unable to match the intensity and aggression of a PSG side who were first to everything.
The head coach’s success so far this year has been based on control, but his players failed to get close to that at any point in the first half. They repeatedly gave the ball away under pressure, consistently failing to string three passes together and being cut open at will.
Liverpool were consistently ripped apart by PSG in the first half (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
Wave after wave of dynamic PSG attacks left Liverpool scrambling to survive. The midfield were unable to prevent clever combinations from the opposition and in possession the Premier League team were rushed and panicked.
Liverpool’s front three were left feeding off scraps but, when their team-mates needed them to win their individual battles and help ease the pressure, they rarely came out on top.
Goalkeeper Alisson Becker took on the role of hero and Liverpool rode their luck to the fullest extent.
Andy Jones
Unhappy ending for Mendes after silencing Salah
If they’re sensible, the approximately 472 full-backs Mohamed Salah has eviscerated over the last decade will spend the next few months watching this match back on replay. Because Nuno Mendes, the PSG left-back, contained the Egyptian in a manner that very few have.
On the few occasions Salah threatened to get in behind, Mendes matched him for pace and cut out the danger. When Salah tried to skip inside and create, Mendes — often with help from Ruiz — hassled him. More than anything, Mendes simply displayed huge powers of concentration and diligence, sticking to his man like glue throughout. Salah’s exit, four minutes before the final whistle, spoke volumes.
(Rico Brouwer/Soccrates/Getty Images)
For Mendes, though, the night was not quite over. In a cruel twist of fate, he failed to properly track Elliott — Salah’s replacement — in the dying stages and had a perfect, painful view of the goal. It soured what had, up to that point, been a sterling individual display.
Jack Lang
What next for Liverpool?
Saturday, March 8: Southampton (Home), Premier League, 3pm UK, 10am ET
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(Top photo: Rico Brouwer/Soccrates/Getty Images)
