PSG's win against Barcelona was a backloaded thriller conjured from chaos New York Times (Online) Jack Lang It was fitting, at the end of an evening of extremely light-hearted football, that Paris Saint-Germain's week in Europe could be boiled down to a version of the old Groucho Marx line. These are my 4-2 wins. If you don't like them… well, I have others. Six nights on from a diverting, meaningless game of two halves between against Manchester City, PSG enlisted Barcelona for a diverting, meaningless game of roughly 73 jagged fragments, a backloaded thriller conjured from sticky tape and chaos. The two results were the same. The matches that produced them could hardly have felt different. At the Etihad, PSG were briefly imperious, chiselling their credentials out upon the crumbling City edifice before completely clocking off. The first half was a blueprint coming back into focus; the second was a reminder not to place too much importance upon the league phase of this competition, not to chomp too heartily on its empty calories. PSG, masters of hitting top gear in springtime, know this better than anyone. This game was another type of beast. For all that this was a de facto midfielder conference, there was no great flow to it. PSG won and deserved to, but there were times when the match wriggled out of their control. It became feral, a thing to be tamed. The pre-match choreography had promised a massacre but it wasn't that. It was a 4-2 survival, a 4-2 stress test. It had been billed as a classic before it had even begun. L'Equipe called Barcelona's arrival a “royal visit” and swooned at the attacking quality on both sides. They were not alone. “I think all the ingredients are in place for this to be one of the great games,” PSG midfielder Vitinha said on Monday. For 70 minutes, it was merely a good one. PSG pressed with maniac intensity in the early phases, leading to half-chances for Kvicha Kvaratskhelia and Desire Doue. Barcelona goalkeeper Joan Garcia made some good saves, including one with his face. Ousmane Dembele and Dani Olmo limped off. Willian Pacho prevented Fermin Lopez from scoring and got a mouthful of studs for his troubles. Doue scored, classily, before half time. Xavi Espart responded 10 minutes after the break, a buccaneering run down the right capped with exactly the right finish, a near-post slammer. In-between times, though, the game began to drift a little. Kvaratskhelia and Marquinhos went off injured; Hansi Flick withdrew Raphinha and Pedri. The notion that this would be remotely consequential in the grand sweep of the season began to feel a little silly. Then a funny thing happened. The stopping and the starting jolted the game into interesting new configurations. The first was a period of Barcelona control: Rodri came on and did his sensible adult routine, elevating everything around him instantly. PSG's defence, now anchored by future quiz-question answer Ilya Zabarnyi, was pushed back; Gavi might have done better after a darting run into Matvey Safanov's box. After that? Carnage. The game ripped itself up from the inside, tried to become what everyone had wanted it to be. Lucas Hernandez scored from a corner, went off, watched Warren Zaire-Emery instantly undo his 78 minutes of good work marking Lamine Yamal. It would not be unfair to say that the Barcelona winger had a howler here: he passed to blue shirts more than some PSG players did and spent much of the match chuntering away to himself. But he also scored the goal of the game, seizing on Zaire-Emery's weak header and skating past him before toe-poking an extraordinary finish past Safanov to make it 2-2. Parity lasted all of a couple of minutes. Vitinha, whose precise position in this match was 'wherever he bloody wanted', collected a loose ball on the edge of the box and pinged a volley past Garcia. He celebrated by twirling his headband around on his finger, a hula hoop routine in miniature. Then, with blood in the water, PSG scored again, Fabian Ruiz tapping home at the far post after some incredibly laissez-faire marking by Joao Cancelo. Four goals in 14 minutes. Six total. A classic after all, then? Not really: it was too confounding a game, its rhythms and meanings too oblique. Too many of the attacking players had poor or middling games. The stakes were too low. That goal flurry was a late-game glow-up, lemons from lemonade. PSG, though, might still extract some value from it. The City win provided a welcome glimpse of top gear, a preview of what this team may become. This was proof that they can also win games when they escape their full control. If a knockout game in March or April suddenly starts fraying at the seams, PSG will be able to call upon the experience they had tonight. For the rest of us, the memory will be sweet but probably not enduring.