From almost the day he arrived in Paris, Marco Verratti has been pestered with the question of when he was planning to go back home. One after another, Italian reporters were dispatched to interview him, only to return disappointed and confused. Verratti was happy in France, playing for a team that believed in him. And a team that he believed in as well.
Rarely, in the four-and- a-half years since, has Verratti said anything to indicate that he has any desire to leave Paris Saint-Germain. But over the weekend he came about as close as he ever has to breaking ranks. “If I wasn’t playing for PSG, then I would only want to play for Barcelona,” he reflected, “because of the way they play football.”
Perhaps, with hindsight, he might want to reconsider. There would be only one team playing football when Paris Saint-Germain welcomed Barcelona to the Parc des Princes on Tuesday night, and it was not the one from Catalunya.
This match had been billed as a duel between the Champions League’s two leading scorers, Edinson Cavani and Leo Messi. But by the time the Uruguayan slammed home his team’s fourth goal midway through the second-half, the supposed shoot-out had instead become a slaughter.
Related: Rampant Paris Saint-Germain obliterates Barcelona in historic win
Verratti set a tone for his team, harrying, tackling and intercepting but also turning each possession into an assault of its own – always looking for the quick, vertical pass, always moving forwards, never relenting. You could call it a performance inspired by the very best Barcelona sides, the ones that he must have been imagining when he made those comments at the weekend.
Even that, though, would be to oversimplify. Verratti is no Xavi clone nor a replica Andres Iniesta. He has developed a style all of his own, evolving by stages into a player who, at 24 years old, has the potential to become one of the next great names in European football.
Marco Verratti’s game by numbers vs Barcelona:
90% pass accuracy
50 passes
4 tackles won
2 chances created
1 assistTop-class performance. pic.twitter.com/uRDIZrNoYo
— Squawka Football (@Squawka) February 14, 2017
He has done it by taking a leaf from the books of a great many different midfielders that his career has brought him into contact with.
“One thing I learned from Andrea [Pirlo] is that before the ball gets to him, he already knows what he’s going to do,” Verratti told Eight By Eight magazine last year. “He plays with one or two touches a lot, because he sees the play before he has the ball at his feet. This is a thing that I’ve watched him do a lot and try to do myself now as well.”
‘Detto fatto’, as they say back home in Italy. Said, and then done. Verratti’s preternatural capacity to think two steps ahead was in evidence as early as the fourth minute, when he slid in to win a challenge in midfield, bounced back up and threaded a pass beyond another opponent to Angel Di Maria in less time than it would take most mortals simply to climb to their feet.
That speed of thought and movement helped to launch his team goalwards, the Argentinian taking advantage of the wide open space that Verratti’s pass had created to float a long delivery of his own over the head of Barcelona right-back Sergi Roberto. Only the quick feet and composed touch of the visitor’s goalkeeper, Marc-Andre ter Stegen, prevented it from reaching Blaise Matuidi.
It was the first of countless such little moments from Verratti. Shortly before the interval, he took a pass facing his own goal midway inside his own half, recognised the run of Julian Draxler and swiveled to set his teammate free with a ball that traveled just 10 yards and yet bypassed Barcelona’s entire midfield. The move ended with Di Maria whipping a cross just over Cavani’s head in the middle.
No matter. Moments later, Adrien Rabiot won a tackle in the centre-circle that nudged the ball in Verratti’s direction. There were two Barcelona players upon him by the time it arrived, but he dissected them with a first-time pass to Draxler, took a return ball and dashed forward to release the same player with the outside of his boot. The German fired across Ter Stegen and into the corner of the net.
That was PSG’s second goal, arriving between two spectacular strikes from the birthday boy, Di Maria. Cavani’s strike made it 4-0. Barcelona had not just been beaten, but humiliated.
Related: Red hot Cavani draws closer to Ibrahimovic’s PSG scoring record
Verratti himself limped out in the 70th minute, after appearing to twist his knee during an awkward fall in the middle of the park. His team, of course, was just fine without him. This was a night when almost every player in a PSG shirt excelled, from Di Maria and Draxler through to the marauding full-backs, Thomas Meunier and Layvin Kurzawa.
A night when the Ligue 1 champion made even Verratti’s outspoken faith in the club’s potential seem insufficient. What, after all, does this team have to envy from Barcelona?
