Barcelona lost 4-2 in Paris and a chunk of football reacted like the season was finished. Three matchdays into an eight-game league phase, that reaction is nonsense.
Here is what actually happened on October 20 at the Parc des Princes. Desire Doue, Lucas Hernandez, Vitinha and Fabian Ruiz scored for PSG. Xavi Espart and Lamine Yamal scored for Barcelona, who twice clawed back to level before the game slipped away late. Barcelona walked in unbeaten across all competitions this season and walked out with their first defeat, away from home, against the side most people would call the best team in the world right now. The contest was still alive in the 86th minute. Calling that a collapse is absurd.
The funeral started with a lie passed off as analysis: that PSG beat Barcelona with a weakened team. Luis Enrique sent out his strongest available group with no absences, Hakimi, Lucas Hernandez, Joao Neves, Vitinha and Fabian Ruiz through midfield, Dembele, Kvaratskhelia and Doue up top. The rotation people keep pointing to happened the week before, in Ligue 1 against Strasbourg, where Enrique rested six first-teamers who then came straight back for this game. Anyone telling you PSG rolled out a B team either hasn't looked at the lineup or is counting on you not to.
That's the clearest sign this backlash is bias, plain and simple. When the argument needs you to misstate the team sheet to work, the argument is already dead.
Then there's the financial angle, the idea that PSG are built on money and so the win is somehow illegitimate. PSG do have a real UEFA sanctions history, fined in 2014 and again in 2022. Dislike how the club was assembled all you want. It changes nothing about those 90 minutes. You can resent the project and still admit the better side won on the night.
The oldest hook in the book is driving this: Barcelona fold in Europe. It's been more than eleven years since they last won the Champions League, and that drought is real, which is exactly why every big European loss lands twice as hard for them as it would for anyone else. This match tells a different story. You don't twice equalize against this PSG and keep the game in the balance into the final ten minutes if you've mentally quit.
Some Barcelona fans make the honest point themselves: PSG were the sharper team and deserved it. They were right. PSG were sharper in front of goal and their depth decided the game when it mattered. That's a defeat, nothing more.
One thing is worth pulling on: Barcelona's defense is a genuine mess. Jules Kounde and Eric Garcia were injured, Andreas Christensen was out with a thigh problem, Roony Bardghji is gone with an ACL. Flick patched a back line together from what was left. Criticize that, loudly. It's the real weakness, and it existed before kickoff. Everything else is noise.
And spare me the double standard on squad management. Flick benched Rodri in Paris, keeping him fresh with Sunday's Clasico in mind, and started Marc Bernal instead. Both clubs look after themselves across a brutal calendar. Only one of them gets accused of cheating the schedule for it.
The ugliest thing in Paris that night was on PSG's side of the stadium. Their ultras hung a banner before kickoff showing a masked figure in a PSG shirt taking a chainsaw to Barcelona's crest, blood everywhere, with the message "Massacre, Paris-style." Barcelona plan to report it to UEFA; no ruling has come back yet. Hold that image next to the people lecturing Barcelona about dignity after a two-goal away loss.
Criticize the defense. Leave the eulogies in the drawer. The people writing them are reaching for a script they had ready before the teams walked out.
