Ángel Di María double helps PSG ease to win against Real Madrid
This was not a night for Galácticos, old or new. At a balmy, boisterous Parc Des Princes Paris Saint-Germain simply overran Real Madrid, pulling apart the hastily-stitched seams of Zinedine Zidane’s injury-depleted team and producing surely the most thrillingly assured performance under Thomas Tuchel.
Two first-half goals from Ángel Di María all but decided this Champions League opener. But it was the vigour and drive of the PSG midfield that left the 13-times champions looking ragged, with Marco Verratti a brilliantly spiky little playmaker, and Idrissa Gueye gleefully relentless in his pressing and covering. It will have escaped no one’s notice (least of all the man himself) that all this happened in the absence of Neymar, banned for two games and reduced to watching on from beneath his gilded baseball cap next to the injured Kylian Mbappé.