A tie that had looked enthrallingly unpredictable, only for the first leg to be set by perhaps the most predictable development possible.
Liam Rosenior had replaced Robert Sanchez with Filip Jorgenson specifically for his footwork, and of course it was a bad goalkeeper pass that set up Vitinha for a decisive goal.
After that, Paris Saint-Germain took a step up – and then another two – and Chelsea didn’t go with them.
The ending ensured this match continued some themes of this Champions League week: erratic goalkeeping displays and Premier League defeats, as Paris Saint-Germain beat Chelsea 5-2.
What will further anger Rosenior was that the scale of the scoreline didn’t really reflect the game. Chelsea’s actual performance hadn’t been in the same sphere as those by Liverpool, Manchester City or Tottenham Hotspur – despite the same actual outcome as the last one.
Chelsea had largely given as good as they got in a game of almost the highest European quality… had it just ended in the 74th minute. He later spoke of a “crazy” final 15 minutes where his team – including himself – didn’t stay “calm”. That was maybe summed up in Enzo Fernandez arguing with Jorgensen and Pedro Neto’s moment with a ballboy, for which Rosenior apologised.
Maybe some of the performance is also fatigue from the Premier League season, which is obviously going to be a discussion over the next week.
Chelsea really have to raise it, though.
A 3-2 reverse was eminently salvageable but 5-2? Kvicha Kvaratshkelia is quite an option to bring off the bench, and he duly maximised that extra space to score another trademark exquisitely curling strike.
The most remarkable thing is that it may not have even been the pick of the goals. All of them involved exceptional class, even if they came from errors and fallibility that actually elevated the game in terms of drama.
That was most visible with maybe the best of them, Ousmane Dembele’s brilliant breakaway. Jorgenson could do little about that or Kvaratshkelia’s first, but the third and fifth?
They might decide the tie.
That might haunt Rosenior, especially to make a call so big – and so conspicuous given Antoni Kinsky – this early in his Chelsea career.
There is of course another story to this game.
The European champions may have finally started to play again. They looked like the best team in Europe again.
There is now always a sense of two sides with this PSG. It should never be forgotten they are ultimately a sportswashing project, who have still assembled one of the most expensive sides in history without “stars”.
And yet, in a purely football sense, they are refreshing.
In a Premier League that has become dominated by high-definition tactical positioning, so many of their players are willing to take someone and have a shot from anywhere.
They go for it.
That isn’t to say that Luis Enrique isn’t highly tactical himself. What he has essentially done is enhance the Spanish positional game for the first time in 15 years, adding dribbling and intensity to a system that is almost supposed to be the antithesis of that. That comes from a lot of hard thinking and hard work, if an admittedly easy schedule to facilitate it.
The end product is nevertheless something that looks so free… if occasionally too free.
PSG have some clumsy moments themselves.
They are far from perfect, and that included last season.
And Chelsea, for their part, did initially prey on that and force more errors.
The back-and-forth of the goals were cases in point.
After Bradley Barcola had displayed precisely this willingness to just let go with the opening goal – a blockbusting strike in off the bar, albeit with considerable space – there was a spell when it looked like they could just overwhelm Chelsea with their live-wire attacking.
If Rosenior will face a lot of questions about the Jorgensen decision, though, he does deserve credit for many of his in-game calls. It is clearly one of his best qualities.
Chelsea duly recalibrated around Enzo Fernandez, who had one of his finest games for the club.
Everything went through him, including the two goals.
It was his pass that put Malo Gusto into space for Chelsea’s equaliser. The finish was strong but it still went through Matvey Safonov.
A theme of the European champions’ more underwhelming 2025-26 campaign has been whether they are missing Gigi Donnarumma. It was hard not to think he’d have saved that… but the Italian wasn’t exactly having the best night for City.
Chelsea began to really press PSG in from there, only for Luis Enrique’s side to exploit their own weakness.
This, typically, was done in the most direct way possible: pure pace. After Cole Palmer had a shot well saved by Safonov – no questions that time – Desire Doue showed quick thinking to immediately get the ball to Dembele.
He exhilaratingly surged up the pitch, although Wesley Fofana initially did well to stay with him. Just when it seemed like Dembele might have been pushed wide, he turned in, then went out – and in the process turned Fofana inside out – to finish supremely.
It was the type of move that was so impressive it produced one of those deafening sounds from the crowd, but it wasn’t definitive.
Chelsea again responded. PSG again showed their own fallibility. Pedro Neto displayed his own directness down the left, before squaring for Fernandez to finish emphatically.
It was another supreme goal, and should have been the set-up for a grand crescendo, an operatic back and forth.
Only one team stayed at the level, though, as Jorgensen – and Rosenior – endured a dismal low.
That may well be it for the tie. PSG do not look the kind of team to give up a three-goal lead now they’re European champions.
And they finally look like they can be that again.
Chelsea and Rosenior, by contrast, look like they still have a bit to learn.
