Kvaratskhelia dazzles for PSG in Champions League win against Atalanta

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia scored a superb goal as Paris Saint-Germain began the defence of their Champions League crown with a comprehensive 4-0 win over Atalanta at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday.

Atalanta came here fresh from an unbeaten start to the campaign in Serie A but having lost the chief architects of their recent success, coach Gian Piero Gasperini departed for Roma after nine years at the helm, while last season’s top scorer Mateo Retegui was sold to Saudi Arabia and African footballer of the year Ademola Lookman has been frozen out following a failed to attempt to secure a transfer.

Marquinhos opened the scoring inside three minutes as PSG made a fast start in front of their own fans, with Kvaratskhelia bursting through to blast home a second before the interval.

Nuno Mendes added another early in the second half and substitute Goncalo Ramos then wrapped up the victory at the death.

Bradley Barcola also had a penalty saved in the first half as Luis Enrique’s team proved far too strong for their Italian opponents, who had no answer to the threat posed by the European champions.

PSG will now hope to build on this and avoid the troubles that befell them last season, when they won just one and lost three of their first five games in the league phase.

They overcame that poor start to qualify for the knockout rounds and go on to win the title, but their prospects of retaining the trophy have been called into question with early-season injuries exposing the limits of an overworked squad.

Here it was all-action midfielder Joao Neves who had to come off in the second half after going down seemingly complaining of a painful left hamstring.

The French club hardly had any off-season break after a last campaign which stretched over 65 games and 11 months, and they recently lost star forwards Ousmane Dembele and Desire Doue for several weeks to injuries picked up on international duty.

Playing at centre-forward here, therefore, was the 19-year-old Senny Mayulu, who came off the bench to score the last goal in the 5-0 rout of Inter Milan in last season’s final.

Source: rfi