PARIS — Two months have passed since the draw for the Champions League last 16 was made and much has changed in that time as Paris Saint-Germain prepares to meet Chelsea in one of the headline ties Tuesday.
When the sides were paired together for the third successive season in December’s draw at UEFA’s Swiss headquarters, PSG appeared the undisputed favorite.
That was as much down to Chelsea’s travails as PSG’s almost flawless form, but just three days later Jose Mourinho was sacked and the Premier League side has since begun a steady recovery under Guus Hiddink.
It remains in the bottom half of the Premier League but it has gone 12 games unbeaten, including a 5-1 thumping of Newcastle United Saturday as Diego Costa scored his eighth goal in that time.
“Now we have more confidence to go there and to play. Paris have a great team, great players, but we go there to try to win the game,” Willian told Chelsea TV.
PSG is not exactly in bad shape, with a 1-0 loss at Real Madrid in the group stage its only defeat in 39 games this season.
It has not lost a domestic match since March last year and had won 16 games in a row before a 0-0 draw with Lille Saturday, when coach Laurent Blanc decided to rest top scorer Zlatan Ibrahimovic, captain Thiago Silva, Thiago Motta and Maxwell.
However, PSG’s build-up to the match has been overshadowed after defender Serge Aurier was suspended for insulting Blanc and many of his teammates in a video posted on social media.
Aurier would have started, as would highly influential midfielder Marco Verratti, who Blanc says is not fit enough having featured sparingly in a wearying run of 12 games in the last six weeks.
Hiddink says he will not take any risks on captain John Terry, who came off injured against Newcastle, while Kurt Zouma is out for the season with a knee injury.
Tuesday’s other match sees Zenit St Petersburg and its Portuguese coach Andre Villas-Boas face Benfica in Lisbon.
The long Russian mid-season break means Zenit has not played competitively since December and it has already been in Portugal for some winter training.
“The main difficulty lies in the fact that we will meet with a team which is faster and more mobile, because it continues to play in a championship without interruption,” said Villas-Boas last week. — Agencies
