PSG capable of doing anything: Pochettino after win over Barcelona

Paris Saint Germain (PSG) coach Mauricio Pochettino said that his team is “capable of doing anything” as he praised the players for their “very good” performance after victory over Barcelona.

Kylian Mbappe’s hat-trick powered PSG to a 4-1 win against Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie here on Wednesday.

“When you win, you are always happy and then the performance was very good. The players deserve everything and we feel very proud of our players for their fantastic match,” the club’s official website quoted Pochettino as saying.

“But now we need to be focused on the game against Monaco and this was only the first leg and we still need to play the second leg in Paris. But we showed that playing in the way we did today, with that intensity and standard, this team is capable of doing anything,” he added.

During the match, Barcelona had the better of the early stages with Keylor Navas thwarting Antoine Griezmann before Lionel Messi opened the scoring in the 27th minute from the penalty spot after Frenkie de Jong was tripped by Layvin Kurzawa.

Paris responded emphatically as Mbappe thumped in the equaliser, and Pochettino’s men would have led at half-time had Marc-Andre ter Stegen not denied Kurzawa.

Mbappe swept home his second after Alessandro Florenzi burst in behind the home defence, then Moise Kean headed in a Leandro Paredes free-kick to put the visitors in a commanding position.

Mbappe completed his hat-trick in the 85th minute, sealing a sumptuous win for his side. Mbappe’s triple strike took him past Pauleta as the third-highest scorer in PSG history on 111 goals. “@KMbappe tonight becomes the 3rd highest scorer in the history of Paris Saint-Germain!” PSG tweeted.

PSG and Barcelona will take on each other in the second leg on March 11.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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