Luis Enrique: If We Want to Beat Barcelona, We Must Stop Yamal

Paris Saint-Germain head coach Luis Enrique has stressed that keeping the ball away from Lamine Yamal will be the key to victory ahead of the heavyweight Champions League meeting with Barcelona.

Billed as one of the standout fixtures of this season's Champions League league phase, PSG and Barcelona go head to head at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday night.

Both sides have made a superb start to the campaign. Hansi Flick's Barcelona have won all of their first 9 LaLiga matches to sit top of the table, 5 points clear of their nearest rivals. The Catalan giants are the first team to achieve that since Real Madrid in 1968-69, and their 39 goals in 9 games represent the second-highest tally in league history at this stage, behind only Sevilla in 1940-41 (42 goals).

At the heart of Barcelona's outstanding form is young superstar Lamine Yamal, whose name has been mentioned in the Ballon d'Or race. Yamal scored once and provided an assist in Saturday's 5-2 win away at Real Betis, taking him to 19 direct goal involvements in all competitions (9 goals, 10 assists) – more than any other player in Europe's top five leagues.

The 19-year-old has also been in electric form in the Champions League, with 5 direct goal involvements (1 goal, 4 assists) in his two appearances in the competition this season, providing two assists in each game. That made him the youngest player in the tournament's history to register two assists in back-to-back matches (19 years, 92 days).

Speaking at his pre-match press conference, Luis Enrique highlighted the threat Yamal poses:

"The best way to stop Lamine Yamal is to keep the ball away from Barcelona. If he doesn't get the ball, everything stays calm. That would be the ideal scenario, but we know how difficult it is to play against Barcelona and Lamine Yamal, so we are aware it will not be like that.

Against a team of such quality, you can only defend alert and organised as a team. But it is not just Lamine; there is Raphinha, there is Pedri. The number of top-level players they have is huge."

Luis Enrique was, however, cautious about the frequent comparisons between Yamal and Lionel Messi:

"I think Lamine wants to be himself, and he is doing that brilliantly. He keeps improving every aspect of his game. But if you compare him with the best player in history, that comparison will always have only one winner. Maybe we can talk about it in the future, but for now the right thing is not to compare him with Messi."

PSG and Barcelona will meet for the 17th time (6 PSG wins, 4 draws, 6 Barcelona wins). That will make Barcelona, alongside Bayern Munich, PSG's most frequent opponent in European competition. Among Champions League fixtures played 10 or more times, only Ajax vs Bayern Munich (3.9) has a higher goals-per-game average than PSG vs Barcelona.