Beating Slovan Bratislava by five goals at home doesn't tell you much about where Paris Saint-Germain will land in this bloated new league phase. Slovan have been dreadful in this competition before, and one bad night against weaker opposition isn't a form guide. It does tell you something about Ferran Torres.
Torres scored three times in about half an hour, his first Champions League goals in PSG colors coming in his very first appearance in the competition for the club. There's an irony sitting right on the surface: PSG won the Champions League, then added the player who scored the winner in the World Cup final over the summer. Now that same player has a hat trick in his first European game in a PSG shirt. If you were worried about how a World Cup winner would fit into a treble-winning squad, you got your answer in one night.
Ousmane Dembélé was the better player on the pitch, in my view. He scored twice in a tight window in the first half, then turned creator, setting up two of Torres' three goals. That's a forward scoring and delivering at both ends of the pitch, and if I had a vote for man of the match, it would go to him. But hat tricks make headlines, and Torres marking his Champions League debut for this club with one is the kind of moment nobody forgets, no matter who did the harder work getting him there.
The context matters too. PSG had been shaky domestically before this, struggling for results across their last several matches in all competitions. None of that showed up here. Luis Enrique's side pressed from the opening whistle and never let Slovan settle. Maybe that's a sign they flip a switch for Europe, or maybe it's just that Slovan, missing a centre-back to injury inside the first half hour, were never equipped to handle it. My money's on the latter. Domestic form doesn't vanish because you put six goals past overmatched opposition on a Wednesday.
There's a quieter, sadder thread running through this game too. Slovan's manager made history simply by being in the dugout for a Champions League match, and it ended with his team five goals worse off, conceding a first-half brace and getting picked apart from the back. Suleiman Camara's goal just before the hour gave Slovan a moment to celebrate, but it barely dented the scoreline. It's not a verdict on him as a coach after one match, just a rough way to make that kind of history.
What I'll actually stand behind: Torres looks like he's going to score goals in this competition for PSG, and Dembélé looks like the same all-around problem for opposing defenses that he was all last season. Everything else, the table, the form, what this means come spring, is still unwritten after one match.
