PSG sweat on news of Neymar's ankle injury

Neymar appeared to be in tears as he came off early in the second half of PSG's dramatic 4-3 win at the Parc des Princes after turning his right ankle.

"Neymar has sprained his ankle. We will see how serious it is but we don't know yet. He is undergoing tests at the moment," coach Christophe Galtier said after the match. The Brazilian striker had earlier scored his team's second goal in a remarkable game, with PSG leading 2-0 before finding themselves 3-2 down in the second half.

Kylian Mbappe, who had scored the opener, equalised with three minutes to go before Lionel Messi netted a 95th-minute winner from a free-kick as the Ligue 1 leaders ended a run of three straight defeats.

PSG must now hope that the 31-year-old does not face a long spell on the sidelines, with a crunch Ligue 1 game away at Marseille next weekend and then the second leg against Bayern on 8th March. The French champions will head to Germany looking to overturn a 1-0 deficit from the first leg, when Mbappe was restricted to a second-half cameo as a substitute on his return from a thigh injury.

Paris Saint-Germain will be looking to avoid going out of the Champions League in the last 16 for what would be the fifth time in seven seasons. But Neymar's fitness has regularly been a cause for concern for PSG ahead of big European games ever since the world's most expensive player arrived from Barcelona in 2017.

 

February 19, 2023

'Not bad luck'

In his first season at PSG, a fractured metatarsal ruled him out of the second leg of their Champions League last-16 tie against Real Madrid, which they lost. He did not play again for his club that season and faced a race against time to be fit to play for Brazil at that year's World Cup in Russia. The following year another metatarsal injury saw him miss the last-16 tie against Manchester United as the Qatar-owned club again went out in the first knockout round.

"This is not bad luck. There are always reasons. The busy fixture calendar doesn't help. This complicates things but we will just need to get on with it, and doing so with a victory is more enjoyable," added Galtier on Sunday.

Neymar injured the same ankle playing for Brazil at the recent World Cup in Qatar. He came off with a sprain in his country's 2-0 win over Serbia in their opening game and didn't play again in the group stage.

The ex-Barcelona man returned in the knockout rounds but Brazil lost to Croatia on penalties in the quarter-finals, despite Neymar putting them ahead in extra time in that game. He returned to action with his club straight after the World Cup but has since been rested in several games in an attempt to put that injury firmly behind him.

"I hope 'Ney' is going to come back quickly because he is an important player for us," Mbappe told broadcaster 'Amazon Prime'.