Striker Kylian Mbappe made his third substitute appearance for PSG in Ligue 1, when he was not allowed on the field in the 3-1 win over Lille.
The previous two substitutes came in Mbappe’s first season at PSG, when he sat out the matches against Nantes in November 2017 and Monaco in April 2018.
After the victory over Lille, when asked about the decision not to use Mbappe, coach Luis Enrique replied: “We don’t want to take risks. That doesn’t make any sense. If today were the final, Mbappe would play.”
The Spanish coach emphasized the importance of rotation when PSG will meet Sociedad in the first leg of the 1/8 round of the Champions League on February 14. “When you play every three days, the goal is to control the minutes,” Enrique said. “We want most of the players to play. They are very competitive and have high intensity.”
Without Mbappe, PSG got off to a shaky start, conceding a goal in the 6th minute. Tiago Santos passed Marco Asensio on the right wing and then crossed into the penalty area. The PSG defender did not clear well, allowing striker Yusuf Yazici to receive the ball close to the goal and shoot past Keylor Navas.
Three minutes later, PSG equalized the score thanks to a mistake by the away team’s defense. Ousmane Dembele stole the ball from Alexsandro Ribeiro close to the penalty area and then passed it to Goncalo Ramos to finish into the empty net.
PSG maintained the pressure and found the decisive goal in the 80th minute. Substitute striker Bradley Barcola broke through on the left wing and crossed for Randal Kolo Muani to tap into the empty net. Barcola and Muani were both recruited by PSG in the summer of 2023, respectively for a fee of 48 million USD from Lyon and 90 million USD from Frankfurt.
The 3-1 victory helped PSG secure the top of the Ligue 1 table with 50 points, 11 points ahead of Nice. In the next round on February 17, the Paris capital club will be a guest of Nantes – the team is ranked 14th with 19 points.