PSG did not have it as easy in the Champions League against Benfica as they had probably thought off. In both the games against the Portuguese side, Christophe Galtier’s men ended up being held to two draws.
This was absolutely not part of the plan. But Benfica showed a lot of determination and worked really hard, carving out two precious points that greatly improves their chances of making it to the knockout stages – especially with Juventus now five points behind them in the group.
Benfica were well aware that in terms of star power or even sheer talent, PSG would completely roll over them. That’s why they tweaked things around for their own benefit. That included being a little overly aggressive to try and rattle the PSG players.
The Portuguese club unleashed their own Argentine dynamite Enzo Fernandez to mess with the opposition players a bit. Fernandez is unrelenting, lunging into tackles and making some very reckless fouls to get in the head of the opposition players.
He got a lot of heat last week for seemingly injuring Lionel Messi, which forced him to miss the last few games for PSG. But Fernandez didn’t let that deter him. His job was not yet over.
During the clash at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday, the Argentine midfielder took it upon himself to harass Neymar and nullify his threat.
Enzo made 3 fouls on the day and was tasked to mark out Neymar from the game. To do so, he decided to lunge into some brutal challenges in an attempt to slow him down.
The Argentine international ended the game by making Neymar feel very sore after the kind of tackles he muscled him out with.
After full-time, Neymar and Fernandez was spotted having an intense talk about something.
Some speculated that the PSG forward was giving his opposition player a piece of his mind for how aggressive he was and nearly injured the Brazilian winger with his challenges.
But something different was spoken between the two during their interaction.
Neymar was reportedly angry at Fernandez for calling him a ‘pelotudo’ (idiot) during the match. But it appears like that never actually happened during the show at all.
The Benfica midfielder, however, was quick to clarify things as he didn’t want to have any issues with the experienced forward at all.
Enzo told Neymar: “Noo, I haven’t done anything to you (on purpose), I never called you ‘pelotudo.”
Neymar didn’t seem to be too convinced by his answer either and seemed to be intent on proving him to be the perpetrator over the entire thing.
As he was going to the back after a frustrating out, the Brazilian forward made some gestures of displeasure – probably for the Argentine midfielder itself.
Fortunately for PSG, even the draw on Tuesday ensured that they will qualify for the knockout rounds of the Champions League.
So there’s probably no reason to completely block out Fernandez and blame him for costing Messi’s injury.
