Christophe Dugarry told listeners on Rothen s’enflamme on RMC that Paris Saint-Germain’s players were walking away from the 5-4 Champions League semifinal first leg with regrets. "Une heure après la fin du match, je pense qu’ils ont des regrets," he said, one hour after the end of the match.
The raw scoreline mattered but did not settle the argument in the studio. Dugarry replayed the high points and the missed safeguards: "punaise on menait de trois buts, on aurait pu faire mieux sur ce coup de pied arrêté, on aurait pu mieux défendre…" He stressed that, despite the slip-ups, PSG left for Munich with an advantage: "Allez quand même à Munich avec un but d’avance, si on nous avait dit avant ce match qu’on irait à Munich avec un but d’avance et une prestation pareil" and added the pragmatic note, "On a quand même un avantage, ce n’est pas rien face à un adversaire aussi important, aussi fort."
The first leg ended 5-4, a score that underlined both PSG’s attacking firepower and the defensive moments that left Dugarry uneasy. That anxious thread was resolved on the return leg: the two clubs finished 1-1 and PSG qualified.
Bixente Lizarazu, speaking in the same post-match conversation about the return match, pointed to the defensive turnaround that made qualification possible. "Pacho a été très fort," he said, singling out the man of the match, and he praised the flexibility of younger players: Zaïre-Emery "a rempli le rôle" at right back for Hakimi and in midfield for Fabian Ruiz.
The contrast between the chaotic first leg and the steadier second game frames why the question of regret still resonates. Dugarry’s reaction captured that split: a team capable of scoring five and yet conceding four looks, on paper, dominant; in practice it left space for second thoughts. The second-leg performance — a 1-1 draw that secured passage — suggests PSG turned those doubts into a controlled display when it mattered.
That tension between spectacular attack and fragile defence is the clearest takeaway from the two matches. Dugarry, a former Bordeaux player turned consultant, focused on moments that might have been handled better in the first game even as he acknowledged the real value of the away goal cushion. Lizarazu’s appraisal of Pacho and Zaïre-Emery gives PSG the immediate credit for fixing the defensive holes exposed in the high-scoring opener.
The immediate consequence is simple and concrete: PSG progressed after a 1-1 return leg following the 5-4 first meeting. The larger consequence is strategic — the club no longer needs to reconcile a single-leg spectacle with a two-legged reality. As Dugarry put it, in a line that summed up the debate, "On a quand même un avantage, ce n’est pas rien face à un adversaire aussi important, aussi fort."
