DONOSTIA-SAN SEBASTIĆN, Spain
Kylian Mbappe lethally fired Paris Saint-Germain into the Champions League quarterfinals with a brace in a 2-1 win at Real Sociedad on Tuesday, his team cruising through 4-1 on aggregate.
Coach Luis Enrique has slashed
Mbappe's minutes in recent weeks after the player told the club he would leave
at the end of the season, but the France captain proved he will be vital if PSG
are to finally win the competition for the first time.
The electric Mbappe was
impossible for Real Sociedad to shackle and his strikes after 15 and 56 minutes
left the Ligue 1 leaders with a simple night in the north of Spain.
"We are very happy, it
was the objective," Mbappe told Canal Plus.
"We wanted to qualify but
today we also wanted to win and give ourselves a bit of an easier game. That is
what we did.
"We had a clear game
plan. We managed to score early and, above all, we managed to avoid getting
into any major difficulty."
Heavily linked to Real Madrid,
the determined Mbappe gave La Liga's defences a glimpse of what horrors may
await them next season.
The forward, who also netted
in the first leg, fired over in the opening stages and then blazed past Hamari
Traore to set up Bradley Barcola, but Alex Remiro denied him from point-blank
range.
It was not so much that Real
Sociedad did not heed the warning but simply could not stop the 25-year-old.
Played into the box but wide
of goal, Mbappe produced the opener from thin air.
With a couple of clever touches,
he sent Igor Zubeldia scrambling and opened up enough space for a shot, which
he whipped into the far corner from a tight angle.
Mbappe's vicious strike pulled
part of the netting away from the post and players had to wait until it was
fixed for play to resume.
They might not have bothered
-- the contest was effectively over.
Mbappe stretched PSG's lead 11
minutes into the second half, racing in behind the defence from the halfway
line.
The striker shaped another
shot to the far post but then tricked Remiro by sweeping home at the near for
his sixth goal in eight Champions League matches this season.
Real Sociedad began to throw
all they had at PSG, but it was too little, too late.
Substitute Ander Barrenetxea
had a goal ruled out for a tight offside moments after coming on.
Gianluigi Donnarumma made a
superb save to thwart Benat Turrientes, as the hosts searched for a consolation
goal which eventually came at the death.
Donnarumma palmed away a cross
into the middle of the box and Mikel Merino was in the right place at the right
time to fire home.
"We competed, but against
a team of this level and with a player ... Mbappe, who each time he gets it in
transition it's almost a goal..." Merino told Movistar.
"I hope this club gets to
have nights like these again."
With one victory in 10 matches
across all competitions, La Real are battling to reach next season's Europa
League.
One of few negative notes for
PSG was a booking for defender Achraf Hakimi, which will rule him out of the
quarterfinal first leg.
PSG, in the last eight for the
first time since 2021, will worry about that later -- this was a night to
celebrate Mbappe's genius, despite the clock ticking down on his days in Paris.
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