Paris St Germain head to the Camp Nou on Wednesday for their Champions League match up against heavyweights Barcelona. Les Parisians go to Spain unbeaten and Laurent Blanc can boast to his former club that he is the only coach in Europe’s top 5 leaves to remain unbeaten via Sky Sports. Blanc played for Barcelona in the 1996/1997 season, only making 28 appearance before he moved to his legendary stint at Marseille.
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Luis Enrique’s men are coming off a brilliant comeback win in the weekends ‘Barceloni Derbi’ against Espanyol. The smaller Catalonian side’s captain, Sergio Garcia scored first to stun Barcelona– but Enrique’s men were inspired by the simple magic of Lionel Messi to aid in his hat trick and produce a 5-1 victory. Paris are also coming off an impressive warm up win, one which saw Zlatan Ibrahimovic score twice in reflections of his prime form despite his looming injury concerns.
Les Parisians fought off FC Nantes in a similar fashion at the Parc des Princes as Les Canaris scored early; similarly to Barcelona, Paris woke up quickly and overtook the 19th place FC Nantes with a 2-1 victory. The French side are the only side out of Ligue 1 representing the league and look to capitalize on being a powerful force by attaining the top spot in Group F.
Paris currently hold one point over Barcelona in the group and will certainly haunt Enrique’s men with their brutal win over the Catalonian’s prior to Wednesdays match. The Capital club were without their talisman during the clubs last match up and Luis Enrique has commented on the fact that he is aware of the danger an in form Zlatan can bring as reported by Goal.com.
"“PSG beat us without Ibra. They are a potent side and with Ibra back fit, they will be even more dangerous.We made mistakes over there – like we have done in other games but in Paris we were punished. We’re talking about one of the top players, a high-level footballer who is very difficult to stop. If we are able to defend as a unit and make sure very few balls get to him, that’s the only way we can reduce his chances of hurting us. I’m expecting a similar game to the one we saw in France. We need to control play and maintain pressure higher up the pitch – something we didn’t do over there. I think Cavani and Ibra will start. We want to avoid being caught on the break and to do that we need equilibrium. Theory is all well and good but it’s completely different when you put it into practice. We need to be careful when PSG attack. It’s important, but I don’t think it’s the most important game of the season.I would prefer to finish first, but finishing second is not a great disadvantage. Its importance is relative.”"
Paris should travel to the Camp Nou with past tensions and future goals of domination, but overall they should be aware of their opponents` home as their last meeting at the Camp Nou under Carlos Ancoletti was not the outcome Les Parisians planned. Of course, this was during the round of 16 in the 2012/2013 season, but much has changed since then, so much so that even Luis Enrique acknowledges that potential danger.