Paris Saint-Germain cruised to a dominant 7-1 away win over Lille OSC on Ligue 1 matchday three, which included a hat-trick performance from Kylian Mbappe. The French forward opened up the scoring within mere seconds of the match, notching a one-touch goal off of an assist from Lionel Messi.
Some managers in football today go above and beyond when preparing for fixtures. In PSG manager Christophe Galtier’s case, he did just that for the clash against his former club.
Speaking during his post-match press conference, Galtier gave his props to last season’s PSG’s U19 squad for being the inspiration behind Mbappe’s first goal against Lille.
“It was a move that we worked on, we found footage from different leagues, and even from our youth team in the Youth League who managed to score that kick-off against Salzburg last season,” Galtier said. “We talked about it yesterday, we saw the footage, we practiced it in training, obviously when it succeeds like that after 8 seconds, it’s very satisfying.
“Congratulations to them, to my staff and to the players for having dared to try it and for having succeeded. It put us in the match, it hurt the opponent and afterwards when the team is serious like tonight, obviously things are much easier.”
The goal that Galtier alluded to was Edouard Michut’s score 11 seconds into PSG’s U19 UEFA Youth League knockout stage encounter against Red Bull Salzburg U19. The goal did not end up being enough in the match, as Red Bull Salzburg U19 wound up clinching a spot in the semifinals of the competition via a 3-1 win.
Galtier noted to Prime Video Sport France after the win that Premier League side Bournemouth and La Liga side Rayo Vallecano have also pulled off this kick-off play.
PSG is off to quite a convincing start to the new league campaign, with 17 total goals scored in three fixtures played.
