Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Victor Lindelof met the media yesterday ahead of Manchester United’s UEFA Champions League clash at Paris Saint-Germain tonight, and their tone was one of optimistic defiance, not concession.
Down 2-0 on aggregate, and playing Les Parisiens with a short-handed squad ravaged by a massive injury crisis, the odds against them are long, very long. However, the UCL is unpredictable, and anything can happen.
“We’re Manchester United, so anything is possible,” Lindelof said Tuesday. “Of course it is going to be a tough game but we’re coming here to win the game and go through.
“Anything can happen and we know that, so if we can get an early goal things could look good.”
In order for United to survive and advance, it’s going to take a historical upset.
Solskjaer added: “It’s never mission impossible – it’s more difficult but we’ve got to get the first goal and anything can happen. Goals always change games and if we get the first one we’ll be believing even more and they might then doubt themselves.
“We can do it – obviously we need the first goal and we need to stay in the game for half an hour left and one goal in it anything can happen. But we need a good plan and we need to perform on the night.”
He further strengthened his case by also citing precedent:
“Everyone knows we have done it [in the past] and results in Champions League in the last few years, I don’t want to call it strange, but last year Juventus lost 3-0 at home against Real Madrid and suddenly they were 3-0 up after 90 minutes against Madrid away.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.