Neymar or Di María, Pochettino’s great dilemma against Real Madrid

PSG still don’t know what it’s like to win away from home in this edition of the Champions League. Among the factors that can explain the statistics, is the poor defensive performance of the magical trio formed by Neymar, Messi and Mbappe. In three of the four defeats that Pochettino’s men have recorded this season, all three started as starters and Wednesday’s game at the Bernabéu will require significant physical effort from the three strikers.

Although there has been no debate so far this season, Pochettino has to decide if he wants to play with Neymar to add a constant offensive threat or, on the contrary, line up Di Maríawho emptied himself in the first leg at the Parc des Princes and his sacrifice helped PSG a lot to put pressure on Real Madrid in the rival field. Di María started ahead of Neymar because the Brazilian was just coming back from injurybut in the two following dates, against Nantes and Saint-Étienne in Ligue 1, the former Barcelona player was chosen by Pochettino to accompany Messi and Mbappé in attack.

As far as talent is concerned, there is little doubt that Neymar is more differential than Di María, who, however, is currently the top assistant in the history of PSG. The quality of the Brazilian, together with his understanding with Messi, have been sufficient reasons to line him up ahead of the Argentine in the decisive games of the season. However, his performance against Nice this Saturday, seeing himself constantly outdone in duels with Daniliuc, together with the suspension that L’Équipe awarded him (a 4), has “opened” a debate on whether Di Maria should start Wednesday to give PSG more consistency in defensive transitions.

Although Fideo’s game was not good at all in Nice, his defensive performance and the sacrifice he shows during the 90 minutes make PSG defend with one more player when the rival has the ball. With Neymar, the task is more complicated, since the one born in Sâo Paulo 30 years ago is a player born for and to have the ball. In his head the word defend does not exist and that is why he needs the team to keep the ball for as long as possible to appear between the lines. In principle, Pochettino will play with Ney, Mbappé and Messi in attack, but it cannot be ruled out, at the last minute, that Di María will start.