Paris Saint-Germain vs AS Monaco 04/08/18

4 August 2018

After going through a nightmarish preparation period where they lost three matches out of a total of five they’ve been involved in, Paris Saint-Germain will kick off the 2018-2019 season against great rivals AS Monaco in the French Super Cup Final that will take place at the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre in Shenzhen, China. Thomas Tuchel succeeded Unai Emery at the Parisians bench, but he had no chance to work with the majority of his first-team players and club’s greatest stars including Kylian Mbappe, Neymar, and Thiago Silva, which might represent a significant setback in a match as important as the one that expects the Ligue 1 champions this weekend. Forced to rely mainly on youngsters, Tuchel suffered two heavy defeats, 3-1 to Bayern Munich and 5-1 to Arsenal before achieving a 3-2 win over Atletico Madrid in a quite interesting match. Meanwhile, Les Monégasques haven’t featured in one massive warm-up game this summer, considering that Hamburger SV was their toughest opponent that also defeated them by three goals to one, which was Monaco’s second loss in the last three matches, which indicates they are not going through a great period.

Neymar Junior, who sustained a horrible injury last January that kept him out of the field for the whole second part of the last season, has joined the squad in China, as he is ready to make his first appearance for PSG in the last six months. Aleksandr Golovin, who arrived at the Stade Louis II from CSKA Moscow, will probably start from the bench, while Rony Lopes and Keita Balde should be the ones to partner Radamel Falcao in the final third.