PARIS: The Champions League knockout stage kicks off on Tuesday with a blockbuster showdown between Paris St Germain and Bayern Munich topping the bill.

Three and a half months have passed since the group stage ended, an unprecedented pause in the Champions League season caused by the break for the World Cup. In the interim, Lionel Messi won his first World Cup title. Kylian Mbappe almost won his second, then got injured.

But both PSG and Bayern have misfired since the World Cup. PSG were unbeaten entering 2023 then lost three in Ligue 1 and are out of the Coupe de France. Bayern still lead the Bundesliga after restarting with three straight draws.

The rematch of the 2020 final, won by Bayern, though will not have the goalscorer and goalkeeper with the best records from the group stage.

Mbappe, who scored seven goals across five different Champions League games in the fall, was set to miss most of February with a thigh injury before making a surprise return to training on Sunday and PSG will head into the first leg with concerns over the fitness of Messi.

Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer’s season is over because he broke a leg skiing on a vacation taken after Germany’s quick exit from the World Cup.

Bayern travel to Paris knowing defeat in the tie will represent a failed season regardless of domestic triumphs.

After Saturday’s home defeat of Bochum, Bayern manager Julian Nagelsmann cut a frustrated figure and looked anything but a coach who had just masterminded another week atop the Bundesliga table with a comfortable 3-0 home win.

“There was too little movement” the 35-year-old said, promising “if we play like that on Tuesday, we won’t go any further [in the Champions League].”

But he vowed his team will up the tempo at the Parc de Princes and if his side do so, that’s bad news for a PSG side which struggles badly whenever intensity is increased.

The pressure, therefore, is firmly on coach Christophe Galtier, given that these big European matches are what define every season for PSG in the Qatar era and their worrying habit of imploding on such occasions.

Galtier’s brief is to do what all his predecessors — most recently Mauricio Pochettino — have failed to do and win the Champions League after PSG persuaded Mbappe to sign a new contract and stay in the French capital last year rather than join Real Madrid.

They had just gone out in the last 16 for the fourth time in six seasons, the nature of their collapse against Real as spectacular as previous exits at the same stage against Barcelona in 2017 and Manchester United in 2019.

Mbappe is in the middle of a three-week spell out with a thigh injury, meaning he will not play in the first leg but should be fine for the return in Munich on March 8.

Messi missed Saturday’s 3-1 defeat in Monaco with an apparently minor hamstring complaint, but it remains to be seen if the 35-year-old Argentine will be on top form for Tuesday’s showdown.

“We have a big game on Tuesday and we all need to stick together between now and then, remobilise, get some energy and our confidence back and also get some players back,” said Galtier.

The other game on Tuesday pairs AC Milan and Tottenham Hotspur.

Tottenham, runners-up in 2019, have been up and down under Antonio Conte but will be fancied against a Milan side who have collapsed, going seven games without a win before this weekend — hardly the best preparation for their first Champions League knockout tie in nine years.

Milan host Tottenham after the San Siro breathed a heavy sigh of relief on Friday night after a 1-0 win over Torino and coach Pioli wants that tight victory to be the turning point after two Milan derby defeats and heavy league losses to Lazio and Sassuolo in just over a fortnight.

Pioli said that Friday’s win should be looked at as a “rebirth” as it ended a run which had left fifth-placed Milan not only miles behind runaway Serie A leaders Napoli but also in a real fight for a place in next season’s Champions League.

Pioli’s counterpart Conte is back in Italy for the last 16 first leg tie just two weeks after undergoing gallbladder surgery in his homeland and his return is likely to be just as uncomfortable as his previous visit after his side were humbled 4-1 by at Leicester City over the weekend.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2023