CNN
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Paris Saint-Germain’s miserable season went from bad to worse on Sunday as the team suffered a second straight home defeat with a 1-0 loss to Lyon.

Even before the game kicked off, Lionel Messi bore the brunt of the frustrations of some PSG fans who whistled when his name appeared on the big screen during the announcement of the starting lineup.

After Alexadre Lacazette missed a first-half penalty, Bradley Barcola’s goal 10 minutes into the second period was enough to earn Lyon the three points on a night that PSG rarely looked like threatening the visiting goal.

Lens’ 1-0 victory over Rennes and Marseille’s 1-1 draw with Montepellier means both teams are now just six points behind PSG at the top of Ligue 1, and even the domestic title may slip from the team’s grasp.

The reaction of some fans on Sunday must have felt a world away from the adulation and worship Messi received during his recent return to Argentina for friendlies against Panama and Curaçao as the country continued its World Cup celebrations.

Messi’s arrival at the Parc des Princes was supposed to be the missing piece that would help PSG finally win the Champions League, the trophy the club’s Qatari owners crave the most.

So far, the only major trophy the team has won since Messi joined was Ligue 1 last season, a title – it’s fair to say – PSG would likely have won without him.

Messi has 34 goal contributions in all competitions for PSG this season – 18 goals and 17 assists – second only to Mbappé’s 38 and head coach Christophe Galtier refused to lay the blame for the team’s failures at the Argentine’s feet.

“I found it [the jeering] hard to listen to,” Galtier told reporters, per the Athletic. “There may be expectations for Messi and Mbappe to unlock difficult situations. Messi tries very hard, they didn’t all work out; but around him, the other players also need to do their jobs.”

“We can’t expect everything from Leo and Kylian,” he added.

Up next for PSG is a season-defining week as Galtier’s side travels to a Nice team that is unbeaten in 13 matches, before hosting Lens at the Parc des Princes.

PSG has lost two of its three matches since being dumped out of the Champions League by Bayern Munich last month, and only limped past relegation-threatened Brest with a 90th minute Kylian Mbappé winner.

After his team’s victory, Lyon head coach Laurent Blanc said the Champions League or bust mentality has been detrimental to PSG’s performances.

“Paris’ problem is when the No. 1 objective of the Champions League is no longer accessible, it seems that the season no longer exists – and at all levels,” he told reporters.

CNN
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Lionel Messi celebrated his return to Paris Saint-Germain with a goal in his first game back since lifting the World Cup.

The 35-year-old only returned to training in the new year after taking some time off to celebrate and recuperate after Qatar 2022, where he finally won the trophy that had always eluded him in one of the greatest finals ever.

But the forward didn’t look to be suffering any hangover as he returned to action with a goal from close range in PSG’s 2-0 win against Angers on Wednesday.

Messi also paid tribute to Pelé before the match, joining his teammates in wearing a t-shirt with the Brazilian’s face on it during the warmup.

PSG sits comfortably top of the league despite Christophe Galtier having to switch up his team as he eases players back in after the World Cup.

Kylian Mbappé, a beaten finalist in Qatar, was rested for Wednesday’s match, allowing the likes of youngster Hugo Ekitiké to get some game time.

The 20-year-old forward has impressed when given the chance this season and opened the scoring with a sweeping finish in the first half.

Messi, who dovetailed the attack alongside Neymar Jr., then doubled the lead in the 72nd minute after a well timed run and right foot finish.

The linesman had initially flagged for offside, but the Virtual Assistant Referee (VAR) overruled the call and the goal was given.

The win on Messi’s return is some welcome good news for PSG, who lost in the league for the first time this season last week, 3-1 away to Lens.

“Yes, it was very important to get back to winning ways. We have rivals who are pushing hard,” Galtier told PSGTV after the game.

“We knew that we were going to have a difficult match because Angers is a team that plays good football and poses big problems on a tactical level.

“I also insist on the fact that the situation – post-World Cup – means that we have had a lot of players absent, that the group was very scattered and that, little by little, everyone is coming back and reconnecting.”

PSG, which is six points clear atop the table, plays Rennes in its next game on Sunday.

CNN
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When dreams clash with reality; when life reaches a daunting crossroads; when we must decide whether to be or make history.

Right now Neymar is at the crossroads.

A 21st century football brand fueled by endless promise; a nouveau-riche social, commercial and cultural phenomena; a superstar who’s no stranger to the scrutiny of the public eye.

Yet when it comes to the bright lights of European football’s biggest stage – the Champions League – he’s trapped in a perpetual cycle of repetition.

A one-time winner, yes – but for some ably assisted by his supremely skilled South American counterparts – Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez – in the once famed ‘MSN’ triumvirate at Barcelona.

On two occasions misfortune has conspired to subvert the Brazilian prodigy’s chances of grabbing the competition by the scruff of the neck in the red and blue colors of Paris Saint-Germain.

So here we are in 2020. Is it third time lucky? Is this Neymar’s moment of truth?

Three games now stand between the ‘Red Pill’ of European enlightenment or the ‘Blue Pill’ of another footnote in the 28-year-old’s lengthening Wikipedia page.

“This is the year that he can really redeem himself […] These three games can change everything […] I don’t believe he’s going to have another opportunity like this one,” Brazilian football journalist Fernando Kallás tells CNN Sport.

Since planting their flag in the cobbled Parisians streets in June 2011, PSG’s Qatari investors have made no secret of their ultimate goal – continental supremacy.

Domestically it’s been an era defined by unrelenting dominance. Seven top-flight league titles and five French cups, including four trebles in six seasons.

But if Europe is a combination lock, they’ve been interminably searching for the locksmith with the elusive key. Seven times they’ve tried and failed to crack the complex code – each failure more painful and bitter than the last.

“A specific timeline was set and once you get past that timeline each season it goes on it seems like PSG are getting further and further away so there’s a weight of history that’s bearing down,” explains French football expert Jonathan Johnson.

The world record signing of Neymar from Barcelona in August 2017 – for a still mind-bending $263 million – was intended to deliver that knight in shining armor.

No longer the back-up singer to Messi and Suarez but now the leading performer with a license to thrill and become the best in the world.

For some it was a game-changer; for Kallás it remains “the biggest mistake in the history of sports.”

READ: How billionaire owners changed European football

Reflecting this past week on the three-year anniversary of his move, the striker wrote that “(these) came with a lot of knowledge. I’ve lived times of joy and some complicated ones.”

His bond with supporters in the city of love has undulated its way through the full gamut of Facebook relationship statuses: From ‘Married’ to ‘Separated’ to ‘It’s complicated.’

All with the allure of a former lover in Catalonia lingering in the background.

A long drawn-out, but ultimately unsuccessful, serenade last summer to woo the Brazilian back to the Camp Nou brought simmering tensions in Paris to the boil.

The love-hate dynamic around the polarizing figure was perhaps best encapsulated in the superstar’s first league appearance of the 2019-20 season.

Relentlessly booed for 90 minutes before delivering a sublime match-winning bicycle kick at the very death – half the naysayers enraptured; the other half enraged.

Kallás paints a picture of jury similarly split down the middle along generational lines in Brazil – the young pretenders who adore “the image, the smile, the tattoos” contrasted with the old guard who are “really concerned about him.”

The Cold War in Paris has since thawed, along with the realization that going back to the future is – for now – not an imminent prospect.

“He has shown on the pitch and off it that he’s committed to the project […] He really has to embrace the challenge of being a PSG player and achieving something, notably in the Champions League, in Paris,” says Johnson.

Whilst a new leaf may have been turned on the pitch, questions remain off it.

Neymar’s personal life has – at times – borne the hallmarks of a gripping telenovela – filled with intrigue, and all supported by an ensembled entourage.

Last year he was cleared of wrongdoing after a Brazilian model accused the former Brazil captain of rape and assault.

This year he was forced to miss a league match through injury – two days after hosting a lavish birthday party in a Paris nightclub.

Those willing him on to succeed despair: Will the boy ever become a man?

“In Brazil we have an expression that says that he (Neymar) is an endless promise […] That he is “Menino Neymar” (“Baby Neymar”) – He’s not a boy […] He needs to be in reality […] He has to grow up,” says Kallás, who has followed the Brazilian’s trials and tribulations on and off the pitch.

“When he’s on the pitch he delivers […] I have never, never heard one complaint from a coach or another player about his attitude in training, in the locker-room.”

And for all the goals, assists and silverware to date, history and biology have dealt the twinkle-toed star a cruel hand – starving him of the opportunity to have his say at the business end of European football’s elite club competition.

Curtailed seasons in 2018 and 2019 due to injuries coincided with dramatic exists for PSG from the round of 16 stage at the hands of Real Madrid and Manchester United, respectively.

“That’s what makes the remainder of this campaign so important and why he’ll be under such close scrutiny,” says Johnson.

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly – and perhaps favorably for PSG – changed the dynamic for the finale of this year’s tournament.

Gone are the two-legged knockout affairs from the quarterfinal stages onwards, replaced instead by single-leg shoot outs – all within the bubble of Lisbon.

Without the departed sharpshooter Edinson Cavani and the recently sidelined Kylian Mbappé, the floor is Neymar’s.

First the surprise package of Atalanta awaits in the quarterfinals; Then a potential clash with the battle hardened Atlético Madrid in the semifinals and, after that, who knows in a winner-takes-all final.

Whilst progress in the competition would – according to Johnson – “really give the (Qatari) project the shot in the arm that it’s needed after a few years of massive disappointment,” for Kallás, this month could be the beginning of a career defining two years for the individual at the heart of the narrative.

With the Brazilian’s contract set to expire in 2022 and a World Cup in Qatar that same year, which is likely to be his last in a Brazil jersey, it’s quite simply “make or break.”

“We always say ‘This is going to be the year. No – This is going to be the year. No – This is going to be the year’ […] He’s 28-years-old, he should be in the peak of his career but he’s not […] It’s his last chance.”

The telenovela has had its unforeseen plot twists, its moments of madness and its bursts of brilliance. Now it’s in the hands of its lead protagonist to script its showpiece ending.