PARIS, Sept. 19 – Kylian Mbappe was back to his best as Paris St. Germain beat Borussia Dortmund 2-0 at home to start their Champions League season on Tuesday. This showed glimpses of what could happen under new coach Luis Enrique.
At the Parc des Princes, PSG’s patience paid off. Mbappe started the scoring with a penalty kick in the second half, and Achraf Hakimi scored a great goal to make it 2-0.
It was only the Ligue 1 winners’ third win in six games this season, and it gave them much-needed relief after their first loss at the weekend. They played Enrique’s possession game to the letter, and it paid off.
PSG has three points and is in first place in Group F, two more than AC Milan and Newcastle United, who tied 0-0 earlier on Tuesday.
“It was important to start the season with a win,” said Vitinha, who was named man of the match.
Enrique also said, “What did I like best? We were always the same. During the whole game, it was clear that we were all giving it our all. The whole game, we were better. It was most important to attack and make opportunities. We won the game because we had more of the ball.”
The home team wasn’t very good, but PSG was rarely in trouble because they were so strong in the middle. Everything seemed to come together when Mbappe calmly put away his penalty kick four minutes into the second half.
Donyell Malen got some space in the PSG area and took a shot, but Gianluigi Donnarumma easily stopped it. This was Dortmund’s first clear chance.
Five minutes later, Vitinha, who had been in charge of the center in the first half, hit the post with a great shot from just outside the area. This gave PSG the lead back.
After half an hour, the Portuguese player had another chance, but his shot was blocked and went over the bar.
PSG didn’t have much of an edge until early in the second half, when Mbappe’s shot was blocked by Niklas Suele after Dembele and Hakimi worked together on the right wing to find Dembele. Dembele then passed to Dembele, who found Mbappe in the box.
In the 49th minute, Mbappe scored from the following penalty kick to give PSG a well-deserved lead. It was his 11th goal in his last nine Champions League games.
Hakimi made it 2-0 in the 58th minute when he chipped the ball with the outside of his foot after Vitinha set him up with a perfect pass.
Then, PSG took control for the last 30 minutes and kept a clean sheet because Borussia didn’t do anything to threaten.
