Pays de Cassel 0-7 PSG: Paris Saint-Germain had an easy evening in the cup tournament on Monday. Partly thanks to five goals from Kylian Mbappé, the amateurs of US Pays de Cassel were beaten at home.
Trainer Christophe Galtier opted for a remarkably strong starting line-up when visiting the French-Belgian border. Lionel Messi was missing, but Kylian Mbappé and Neymar just showed up at the Lens stadium, which provided the backdrop. Sergio Ramos was also in the starting eleven. A signal that PSG took the game very seriously.
The puny US Pays de Cassel survived for a long time. For half an hour the football dwarf was even allowed to dream of the story of David against Goliath. Until Mbappé started to interfere in the game. And with lightning speed, the French star skillfully broke down the wall.
It took Mbappé eleven minutes to score a hat-trick. In between, he also gave an assist to fellow striker Neymar. With that, the fairytale was ready for the home team. Especially since Mbappé also made his fourth goal of the evening immediately after the break. In the end, the resistance was broken and PSG was able to play the game quietly. Carlos Soler was allowed to score a sixth goal. Mbappé was not involved in the sixth goal. Neymar was now the principal.
However, the final agreement was back to normal for Mbappé, who scored his fifth goal of the evening. It was the icing on the cake after a simple evening, in which Galtier and his men qualified for the last sixteen of the Coupe de France.
Alexis Zmijak’s fanboy moment
It’s the charm of every cup tournament: the chance that amateurs will face world stars. However, like this season in France, it is rare. A sixth division team drew against Paris Saint-Germain. With Lionel Messi, with Neymar and of course with Kylian Mbappé. It does embarrass the captain of Pays de Cassel.
Alexis Zmijak made sure that the small Pays de Cassel advanced one round in the battle for the Coupe de France with a goal, with PSG as the absolute dream draw in the tenth round. The stars from Paris play an away game, but will still feel a bit at home. They don’t have to play football on the sixth division club’s tuber field, Lens has been kind enough to make the stadium available. The match is sold out and so the amateurs of Pays de Cassel play in front of almost forty thousand people.
For the aforementioned Alexis Zmijak it will be a competition with a special touch. He belongs to the ultras of PSG, the hard core with fanatical supporters. Le Parisien visited him in the run-up to the cup game and in conversation with the newspaper, Zmijak admitted that he will have doubts if Mbappé comes storming at him. He mentioned, “Do I tackle him or not? Because I can already hear myself thinking, he has to play against Bayern Munich in the Champions League.”
