“Not on Bayern’s level”: Is he PSG’s weak link?

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Mats Hummels and Benedikt Höwedes have pinpointed Marquinhos as a potential weak link in Paris Saint-Germain’s defence ahead of the club’s showdown with FC Bayern Munich.

"He was the main weak point in the league campaign," said Prime expert Höwedes, referring to the PSG centre-back and captain ahead of Tuesday evening's Champions League semi-final first leg.

Bayern Munich won 2-1 at Parc des Princes during the Champions League group stage in early November. Marquinhos struggled in the opening 45 minutes and was largely to blame for Luis Díaz’s second goal.

Hummels, working as a TV pundit for Prime, agreed with Höwedes’s assessment, pinpointing Marquinhos as a weak link in the PSG defence. “I don’t think he was prepared for Bayern’s intense pressing,” the former Germany international said of the Brazilian, referring to the group-stage clash. “He didn’t seem quite up to the pace. He usually is, but I could imagine that was on his mind a bit today.”

“As Bayern, we’d look to press him every time he has the ball and make him feel uncomfortable again,” Hummels added. While the Parisian centre-back partnership of Marquinhos and former Frankfurt man Willian Pacho is “good,” in Hummels’ view, “it’s not on the same level as Bayern.”

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Marquinhos is fast establishing himself as PSG’s man for the big occasions.

Marquinhos has been at PSG since 2013 and is now a club icon. For years he chased the Champions League with the club; last season, the 31-year-old finally captained the French champions to their first European crown.

This term, however, he has become the man for the big occasions: the captain is no longer a automatic starter, appearing in only one of PSG’s last nine Ligue 1 outings. Yet in the Champions League, Luis Enrique regards the Brazilian as indispensable: he has started 12 of PSG’s 14 matches in the competition, including Tuesday’s clash with Bayern. His most recent standout moment came in mid-April, when he produced a spectacular goal-line clearance during the quarter-final second leg at Liverpool (2-0).

After Tuesday’s first leg in Paris, he and his teammates will head to Munich for the decider next Wednesday, with the winners set to face either Arsenal or Atlético Madrid in the Champions League final in Budapest at the end of May.

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