“We are up against the wall, but it’s a great challenge”: PSG hosts Barcelona in the Champions League after the slap in the Coupe de France

Nikola Karabatic et les Parisiens affrontent le Barça en quart de finale de la Ligue des champions. MAXPPP – Laurent Lairys

After a checkered journey, a passage through the dams box and a heavy defeat on Saturday on the French front against Nantes (23-31), PSG handball tiptoe into the quarter-final of the Champions League against FC Barcelona, ​​from Thursday April 25 (8:45 p.m.).

The Parisians will need to achieve a performance similar to that achieved by the footballers against the same Barça a week ago in C1 (2-3, 4-1) to also reach the last four. And they too maintain their dream of a first coronation in the queen of competitions after which their common Qatari owner is still chasing.

Like Kylian Mbappé's squad, the Karabatic brothers will play the first leg at home on Thursday (8:45 p.m.), and will have to seek qualification a week later in Catalonia. The comparison probably stops there, however, with PSG hand approaching the double confrontation with an obvious outsider costume.

It is due on the one hand to the standing of the opponent, holder of the record for titles in the competition (10, the last two in 2021 and 2022), which gives it "a kind of’aura" and imposes it "on the pitch, by everyone including the officials", according to Nikola Karabatic, formerly of the Blaugrana house (2013-2015).

Barcelona and its French

"Barcelona, ​​with its players, the campaign carried out this season and the return home, are rather favorites. But in quarters, anything can happen. We believe in our chances,” completes the legend of handball for AFP.

The Catalans, led by their French squad (Dika Mem, Melvyn Richardson and Timothey Nguessan), their internationals in all positions and probably the best pair of goalkeepers on the board (Emil Nielsen and Gonzalo Perez de Vargas) , they reached the quarter-finals directly by finishing in one of the first two places in their group, with the holder Magdeburg and ahead of the Hungarian armada of Veszprem.

PSG therefore had to dismiss the Poles of Plock (30-26, 34-33) after a group stage with five defeats (in 14 matches), some in the last moments while&rsquo ;he held victory in hand (twice against Kiel, against the Norwegians of Kolstad).

An end to Karabatic's club career in a week?

"These points should have put us in the top two. But that's how it is, we're not going to worry about what happened before, underlines Nikola Karabatic, whose immense European career (three League champions including one with Barcelona) could stop in a week.

To extend it until the Final Four in Cologne (June 7-8), reached three times in the four previous editions, the eldest of the Karabatic brothers (40 years old) and his teammates will also have to treat their headaches caused by the heavy setback conceded on Saturday in the Coupe de France final against Nantes (31-23).

"When you lose like that in the final, in front of your audience in Paris (Bercy) in addition, it puts a big slap in the collective and individual confidence, beyond (deficiencies at the level ) of the game. We have a lot of work to do. We're up against the wall, but it's a great challenge. underlines Nikola Karabatic.

A challenge partly taken up by Montpellier, winner at the Palau Blaugrana (37-34) on the last day of the group stage, a match however without any real stakes for Barça, already assured of the & rsquo;one of the first two places. It will be a completely different Thursday.