One of the more lopsided match ups of the UEFA Champions League’s Round of 16 lived up to its expectations, with favorites Paris Saint-Germain offered no resistance during their knockout round’s first leg at Bayer Leverkusen.
With the help of two goals from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the reigning French champions took a 4-0 lead on Germany’s second place side, quickly eliminating any doubt the ambitious Parisians will make another trip to the competition’s quarterfinals.
The teams will resume their matchup two weeks from now in Paris.
PSG’s superiority was evident from the opening whistle.
It only took three minutes for that edge to put Laurent Blanc’s team in front, intercepting a Simon Rolfes pass at the edge of Bayer’s defensive third, Blaise Matuidi played wide to Ibrahimovic before sprinting into the Leverkusen penalty area.
When he was found moments later by Marco Verratti through ball, the French international had an easy left-footed finish for the game’s opening goal.
Ibrahimovic hammered his teammate’s layoff into top of goal from 20 yards out.
As if placing his shot into a pneumatic tube, “Ibra” sent the ball on a line to the right of the Bernd Leno, the force of his strike giving the Bayer keeper little chance to react before PSG’s third goal flew just under the cross-bar.
With Ibrahimovic spending the match’s last half hour in midfield, helping his team control the ball, PSG appeared to have grown tired of pushing for goals.
In the 88th minute, however, a clearly fatigued Bayer couldn’t help but conceded the fourth.
With PSG building down the left, Ibrahimovic put an overlapping Maxwell behind the Leverkusen defence, where the left back crossed for Lucas Moura at the far post just before the ball rolled out of play.
Moura’s layoff for Yohan Cabaye gave the recently purchased midfielder an easy finish into the upper right hand corner from 15 yards out, giving PSG a lead that’s never been reversed in Champions League.
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