THIS wasn’t what we usually think of when it comes to a romantic trip to Paris in the springtime.
Blood, sweat, tears, bruised bodies and dogged defensive spirit.
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In front of the next two kings of England – Princes William and George – Unai Emery’s workaholic Aston Villa suffered an injury-time sucker punch from Nuno Mendes, which turned this Champions League quarter-final significantly in favour of Paris Saint Germain.
For so long, Villa kept PSG – one of the most potent attacking forces on the planet – down to a single-goal lead ahead of next Tuesday’s return leg.
But in the final seconds, Mendes drilled past Emi Martinez, leaving Villa with a serious mountain to scale.
They will bring the noise at Villa Park – they always do at one of English football’s loudest venues – and the prospect of an all-English semi-final against another of Emery’s former clubs, Arsenal, still isn’t beyond them.
After Morgan Rogers fired Villa into a shock first-half lead, Desire Doue and Khvichka Kvaratskhelia hammered home excellent strikes either side of the break.
But Luis Enrique’s men were unable to make their dominance count to the full, unable to put Villa to the sword and make the second leg a formality.
PSG had three-quarters of the ball as they peppered Villa’s goal but Emery’s men gritted their teeth and held out right up until those final seconds.
Martinez, the bete noire of all France after his antics during and after the 2022 World Cup Final, was the first Villa player out to take the heat from the local ultras who swore at him in Spanish.
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Villa’s supporters hailed their man as ‘the world’s No 1’ as they enjoyed their club’s most high-profile match in more than four decades.
Prince William was in the house, Villa’s most famous fan offering some pretty decent pre-match tactical analysis of the Paris high press to TNT Sports.
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PSG arrived here after confirming another Ligue 1 title and having dispatched Liverpool on penalties in an epic last-16 tie.
Villa were on the back of seven straight wins in all competitions and Emery opted for Marcus Rashford, ahead of Ollie Watkins, at centre-forward with his prolific PSG loanee Marco Asensio starting on the bench.
Right from the off it felt as if this was going to be a night for Villa to graft and slog, with PSG pinning them back.
Martinez, whose every touch was met with derision, was forced into a smart save early on – pushing away an Ousmane Dembele shot after Boubacar Kamara had escaped a penalty appeal for a challenge on Kvaratskhelia.
The Georgian, known as ‘Kvaradona’ at his former club Napoli, has an extraordinary ability to dribble at express pace and Matty Cash was soon booked for hauling him down.
Yet after sucking up 35 minutes of almost relentless pressure, Villa broke away and scored a classy team goal.
John McGinn, the skipper with the bullish physique and the dog-of-war spirit, won a thundering tackle to dispossess Mendes and released Rashford with a diagonal ball.
The Manchester United loanee fed Youri Tielemans, who squared for Rogers to apply the finish, with PSG stretched to breaking point.
Those travelling Villa fans in the corner went ballistic but the lead would last for only four minutes.
After Martinez had made a scrambling save, a corner was cleared only as far as Doue, who bent a sumptuous shot into the top corner to give Villa’s Argentinian keeper no chance.
Before half-time Rashford skinned Ashraf Hakimi down the left but couldn’t provide the final ball.
At half-time, Emery replaced Cash with Axel Disasi but the incoming right-back was handed a baptism of flames from Kvaratskhelia.
Within four minutes of the restart, the Georgian turned the on-loan Chelsea inside, then outside before he leathered home a shot which beat Martinez at his near post and almost burst the roof of the net.
The pattern of the match continued – an attack v defence drill in which Villa frequently employed six men strung across the back, interspersed with occasional counter-attacks.
The dancing feet of Doue and Kvaratskhelia provided constant peril for Villa, the two men combining to set up Hakimi, whose shot was pushed away by Martinez.
At this point, Emery introduced Asensio against his parent club but the Spaniard was seeing little of the ball.
Soon, Martinez was beaten at his near post again, this time by Hakimi, but the full-back had been flagged narrowly offside.
It was seat-of-the-pants stuff for the visitors, desperate to keep the deficit down to a single goal.
Emery made a triple change, with Watkins replacing Rashford as part of it.
But deep in injury time, Mendes rounded Martinez and thumped home the third to give PSG a major advantage.
