A day after Pau Quesada, Real Madrid's coach, stated that the goal of this season was for the team to reach the Champions League semifinals for the first time, the group stumbled tonight against PSG at the Alfredo di Stéfano, where they dropped two points against an opponent they had beaten away last season. Karchaoui's 1-1 in the second leg frustrated the white team, which had taken the lead with a goal from Schröder and then struggled to show its best version against Paulo César's combative team, which appeared without former white captain Olga Carmona, who was injured, but with former Real Madrid player Feller in the eleven. The draw in the Champions League opener was not enough for Madrid, which has a path full of traps in the competition and could even fall into an open ending in which it conceded several dangerous counterattacks that the Parisians did not know how to tie up.
The game turned in Real's face when Schröder already finished off a Caruso cross into the net in the second minute. The young Swedish forward, bought from Hacken for a record amount of around 1.5 million euros, has given a huge impact to the group. At 19 years old, she has scored six goals in the five games she has played so far in the white shirt—she has scored in all of them—and in her we sense a high-level partner and many resources for Linda Caicedo, Madrid's most decisive piece.
With the goal so early, Quesada's team mixed sections in which they launched forward pressure with others in which they leaned back. The threat posed against the powerful legs of Linda, Schröder and Keukelaar is proving to be very suggestive at this start of the season for Real, who have to decide if their identity involves trying to be a group that subdues the rival from the intensity of their deployment all over the field to steal or prefers to be more eclectic and alter that proposal with the electric whips that their attackers release when they have space to run before them.
PSG's push made Madrid retreat and lose a lot of fluidity, which formed with Andreia Jacinto, Senss and Caruso in the center of the field. The new midfielder, who wore three of this summer's signings while Toletti and Angeldahl are still recovering in the infirmary, was choked with associations, imprecise in the release of the ball and also in connections with Caicedo. The Madrid circuit was shut down before the ball reached the Colombian winger, the most talented at activating the attack due to her ability to overwhelm and break lines. This context favored the appearance of Karchaoui, Echegini, Feller and Ajibade.
The PSG attackers put a lot of effort into it, but they also couldn't find the finesse in the final third after Isabela Chagas missed a free shot after a lateral foul and Ajibade's shot went high in a low position. Madrid's play became so blunt that it did not bother Kiedrzynek again until the final stretch of the first half, when Andreia Jacinto put Schröder into flight. The Polish goalkeeper easily caught the shot before the teams went to the locker room.
The intermission seemed to suit Madrid well. His football in the second half continued to be discontinuous, but the effervescence of his counterattacks brought him close to the Parisian team's goal a handful of times after Ajibade wasted an open position to beat Frohms in the 46th minute. The first warning came from Caicedo with a tame and slanted shot that was blocked by Kiedrzynek and later came the two one-on-ones from Schröder. The Swedish forward missed the first after a pass from Caruso and hit the second on the post after a delivery from Linda. The rebound fell to the Colombian, who summoned her teammate again to the Polish goalkeeper and saw her shot hit the left post.
When Madrid unleashed one volley after another, PSG found themselves with a youthful penalty from Lakrar. The French center grabbed Morissiant very lightly and the referee pointed out the eleven meters. The VAR did not intervene because there was contact and the action was interpretable. Karchaoui put the shot into the net with a left foot to tie the score. The reaction of Quesada's team, which only agitated the team with Athenea and Beerensteyn, was not enough to avoid a slip in the debut in the Champions League before visiting a bogeyman like City, the English champion, on Thursday of next week.
