Mbappé sends wake-up call to PSG's Champions League rivals - ESPN

Kylian Mbappé may be on his way out of the French capital, but as long as he's still in the starting lineup for Paris Saint-Germain, they remain a dangerous team.

The World Cup winner showed why on Tuesday, as he scored a pair of excellent goals in a 2-1 win over Real Sociedad that put PSG back into the quarterfinals of the Champions League for the first time in three seasons.

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«We knew right away that we couldn't go to sleep,» Mbappé said after the match. «If they had opened the scoring, they would have pushed on with their fans' backing. We had to dampen their hopes early on.

»That's what we did, and we're very happy to be back in the quarterfinals."

PSG advanced 4-1 on aggregate, with Mbappé also scoring one of the goals in the 2-0 win in the first leg in Paris three weeks ago. ESPN has reported that Mbappé has already told PSG he will not stay with the club after this season, with a move to Real Madrid seeming all but certain.

Despite huge spending to try to win the Champions League for the first time, PSG had been eliminated from the last 16 five times in the last seven seasons, including the last two. They had made the semifinals in 2021 and were runners-up in 2020.

«We wanted to qualify, but we also wanted to win,» Mbappé said. «We had a game plan that was clear, and we managed to score early. We didn't come under too much pressure, just a little at the end.»

Despite his heroics against Sociedad, Mbappé hadn't scored in his last two appearances, a pair of draws with Rennes and AS Monaco, and was subbed off in both of those games — a move by Luis Enrique that ESPN sources said did not sit well with his star player.

But Mbappé played through the final whistle on