{"id":52850,"date":"2025-07-10T01:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T01:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/52850\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T01:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T01:30:09","slug":"psg-embarrasses-real-madrid-in-one-sided-club-world-cup-semifinal-confirms-its-supremacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/52850\/","title":{"rendered":"PSG embarrasses Real Madrid in one-sided Club World Cup semifinal, confirms its supremacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. \u2014 Real Madrid is the most successful club in the history of soccer, the most popular sports team in the world, with wealth and aura in epic proportions. It is Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 and Vinicius Jr., and two dozen others who comprise the most valuable squad in the sport<\/a>. And yet, on a boiling Wednesday afternoon here at MetLife Stadium, it melted like cheap butter under the searing pressure of Paris Saint-Germain.<\/p>\n

This, the second Club World Cup semifinal, was supposed to be a clash of giants. It quickly turned into a bludgeoning.<\/p>\n

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Real Madrid was sleepy and sloppy. PSG was ruthless, and smashed the so-called kings of Europe<\/a>, 4-0.<\/p>\n

The Parisians could\u2019ve scored twice in the first five minutes. Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois denied them, but only delayed the inevitable. Fabian Ruiz scored in the sixth minute. Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 pounced on a mistake in the ninth. Ruiz scored again in the 24th, and some of the 80,000 Real Madrid fans in attendance got out of their seats and sulked toward the concourse.<\/p>\n

They had filled MetLife Stadium to the brim. They were buoyed by the return of Mbapp\u00e9, who started his first game of this Club World Cup at the tip of a star-studded attack \u2014 and against his former club.<\/p>\n

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But Los Blancos were outrun and overrun by the reigning champions of Europe<\/a>, by the team that recently stole their crown.<\/p>\n

They were pinned back into their own defensive half, pulled side to side, and punished for their lack of focus and intensity \u2014 punished by the undisputed best team in the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ruiz tore them to shreds, sneaking toward and into the penalty area. He nearly curled a fourth-minute shot past Courtois, before Real Madrid had even woken from its siesta.<\/p>\n

Twenty-five seconds later, Hakimi crossed to Demb\u00e9l\u00e9, and only a sprawling Courtois kept PSG at bay.<\/p>\n

But not for long. A minute after that, D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Dou\u00e9 danced down the right. His cross was cut out; but then Ra\u00fal Asencio spaced out. Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 nicked the ball off Asencio, evaded Courtois, and Ruiz scored easily.<\/p>\n

The left side of Madrid\u2019s defense couldn\u2019t come to grips with the fluid four-man combinations of Ruiz, Achraf Hakimi, Dou\u00e9 and Demb\u00e9l\u00e9. Asencio and Fran Garcia were overwhelmed, and looked out of their depth. They told of an unbalanced squad, headlined by Galacticos but filled in with relatively average role players.<\/p>\n

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That unbalanced squad ran into a thoroughly brilliant one, an optimized machine. PSG’s possession was equal parts commanding and dynamic. Its pressing, as always<\/a>, was aggressive, coordinated and relentless. It was led by Demb\u00e9l\u00e9, who returned from his injury and jumped Antonio R\u00fcdiger, the aging center back who was once so crucial to Real’s dominance.<\/p>\n

Here, in the ninth minute, R\u00fcdiger was culpable. He accidentally and clumsily tapped a ball with his plant foot. And Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 said goodnight.<\/p>\n

All three first-half goals came from the PSG right \u2014 or the Madrid left. The third was the prettiest \u2014 but also the most damning. It was essentially five passes \u2014 Hakimi to Dou\u00e9, Dou\u00e9 to Hakimi, Hakimi to Demb\u00e9l\u00e9, Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 to Hakimi, Hakimi to Ruiz \u2014 that took the Parisians from back to front, then into the box. They met hardly any resistance. It looked like a counterattack; but no, it was just Real Madrid’s openness.<\/p>\n

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PSG’s dominance wasn’t confined to one side of the field, though. Nuno Mendes, the do-everything left back, was everywhere. He was bombing down the wing, bamboozling Real Madrid by inverting into the half-space, and even chasing down Vinicius Jr. when the Real Madrid star looked to be in on goal in the first half.<\/p>\n

Like against Inter Miami in the Round of 16<\/a>, PSG was so far and away the better team that it downshifted in the second half. Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia exited. Those who stayed in the game seemed to be saving their legs for Sunday’s final against Chelsea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But like against Inter Milan in the Champions League final, even when they downshifted, they were better. Goncalo Ramos scored a fourth goal off the bench late on. Real Madrid shoulders slumped.<\/p>\n

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By the 90th minute, it was no contest. Despite a cooling break, merciful referees opted to not add any stoppage time. Szymon Marciniak, the head ref, blew his whistle. And Real Madrid, which brought more eyeballs to this Club World Cup than anybody else, slumped out of the competition, one step short of the final.<\/p>\n

Here’s how the match went down in real time:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. \u2014 Real Madrid is the most successful club in the history of soccer, the most…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":52851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[461,2217,39420,39415,39419,39418,22560,39424,39423,36535,39422,39417,1722,39421,10214,221,62,39416,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-52850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-chelsea","9":"tag-club-world-cup","10":"tag-desire-doue","11":"tag-fabian-ruiz","12":"tag-fran-garcia","13":"tag-hakimi","14":"tag-inter-miami","15":"tag-inter-milan","16":"tag-khvicha-kvaratskhelia","17":"tag-kylian-mbappe","18":"tag-nuno-mendes","19":"tag-ousmane-dembele","20":"tag-paris-saint-germain","21":"tag-raul-asencio","22":"tag-real-madrid","23":"tag-soccer","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-thibaut-courtois","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114826354959778593","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}