adminPARIS — Hundreds of Chelsea football fans went on the rampage in central Paris on Wednesday night, smashing up cafes and shops, on a day their team were humbled 1-3 in a Champions League quarter-finals.Fresh daily newspaper L’Equipe said Paris Saint-Germain can start to dream of reaching the Champions League semi-finals.
Javier Pastore’s late strike secured a comfortable lead for the French champions going in to next Tuesday’s second leg at Stamford Bridge.
It was a nightmare evening for David Luiz who lost the ball which led to PSG’s opener before the Brazilian put into his own net to double PSG’s advantage. Mourinho labelled Chelsea’s defending “a joke” and then launched an extraordinary attack on Fernando Torres.
Mourinho blew his top after Chelsea’s chaotic defending led to three goals that leave his side with a mountain to climb to avoid a Champions League quarter-final exit.
The Chelsea boss then questioned whether Torres, axed from the game before coming on as a second-half substitute, was “a real striker”.
We couldn’t transform half chances into goals. And on top of that, we made individual defensive mistakes — so we paid the price.
“We scored in our own goal, and the third goal is a joke. Not a goal, a joke.” The Chelsea manager then turned his attentions to Torres, who came on as a substitute for Schurrle midway through the second half.
“I’m not happy with my strikers’ performances so I had to try things. And with Andre at least I know we have one more player to have the ball, one more player to associate with the other players, even though he’s not a striker. But football is not just about that. It’s also about scoring goals, getting behind, and that is for strikers. Real strikers. And I had to try.
“It’s difficult for us to score goals, especially when the games are tight. It’s difficult for us to transform the half-chances into chances.
“And when you make a defensive mistake, you are in trouble.’
“We are losing 3-1, so what can be our approach? Defend? Difficult is when you draw 1-1 in Galatasaray. That makes a doubt. When you are losing 3-1, there is one approach. We have to try and win 2-0, 3-1, 4-1 . . . there is no other approach.” PSG striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who went off in the second half with an apparent hamstring injury, will be out for two to three weeks and miss the second leg.
Some 400 Chelsea thugs could be seen making “Sieg Heil” salutes and chanting racist abuse before they started attacking Paris Saint-Germain supporters in the hours before the two sides’ Champions League quarter-final clash.
The worst of the violence was in Rue St Denis, a popular tourist street full of pubs and bars, with flares let off that quickly filled the packed area with thick black smoke. “It’s terrifying — I just want to get out of here,’ said Sarah Avel, a 16-year-old student. ‘We could hear the chanting all afternoon but we didn’t expect fighting.”
The fans had been drinking for most of the afternoon outside the Frog and Rosbif pub before they moved across the road to The Thistle.
The fighting started there as some of the fans could be heard chanting English Defence League songs in front of black Parisians. Riot police were quickly mobilised but a group of around 100 fans then rushed down Rue St Denis, smashing anything in their path. Chelsea had 2 000 tickets for the game but thousands of their fans travelled to Paris without tickets.
Earlier in the day, there were police intelligence reports that 300 hardcore Chelsea hooligans had entered France via Belgium to avoid detection.
In sharp contrast, Mourinho appeared to be on a charm offensive.
The 51-year-old had already been lavish with his praise for Ibrahimovic before the game, labelling the Swede as “one of the best in the world” and also said the French club would conquer Europe.
Mourinho appeared to be in good spirits before Wednesday’s match, walking arm-in-arm with PSG’s Brazilian forward Lucas Moura and mischievously poking his head through Champions League curtains put on the tunnel. — Mailonline.
Online Reporter