Paris Saint-Germain has one foot in the UEFA Champions League Quarterfinals after an emphatic victory at the BayArena. Bayer Leverkusen performed poorly and offered little resistance to the defending Ligue 1 champions. Both sides lined up more or less as expected, but it was surprising changes in the roles that each player fulfilled that determined the outcome of this match.

Sami Hyypiä continued to use a 4-3-3. Bernd Leno started in goal behind a back four of Andrés Guardado, Emir Spahić, Ömer Toprak, and Roberto Hilbert. Simon Rolfes, Gonzalo Castro, and Lars Bender formed a balanced trio in the midfield. Heung-Min Son and Sidney Sam flanked Stefan Kießling, who spearheaded the attack.

Laurent Blanc also stuck with a 4-3-3. Salvatore Sirigu began between the posts. Maxwell, Thiago Silva, Alex, and Gregory van der Wiel made up the defense. The midfield consisted of Thiago Motta, Blaise Matuidi, and Marco Verratti, supporting the attacking trident of Ezequiel Lavezzi, Zlatan Ibrahimović, and Lucas Moura.

Usually, Ibrahimović plays centrally up front flanked by two wingers, but on Tuesday the Swede often drifted out wide and moved into channels, dragging the opposing center backs out of position and thus opening up gaps in the heart of Leverkusen’s defense for his teammates to attack. Though the hosts began decently, the visitors stung them on the break in large part thanks to Ibrahimović’s movement: the Swede shifted out to the right flank, drawing Spahić out of his usual position, and participated in the build-up that culminated in Verratti feeding the streaking Matuidi, who found the bottom corner of the net after Rolfes (who appeared to be marking the Frenchman) gave the ball away and failed to keep pace with him; Bender’s tendency to drift out wide (which forces him to cover more ground when he needs to track an opposing runner from the midfield) also contributed to the lack of opposition for Matuidi. In addition, Lucas’s inclination to stay wide and the fullback’s adventurous approach stretched Bayer’s defense, creating a wider gap for their teammate to exploit.

By contrast, Leverkusen’s attack was quite blunt and predictable. Son and Sam usually stayed very narrow in order to influence the game more, but this meant the hosts lacked variety going forward, and Les Parisiens‘ hard-working midfield trio provided ample protection for the center backs to prevent their opponents from unlocking the defense. Even Castro remained central in order to see more of the football, but in doing so allowed the visitors to organize themselves in a compact defensive shape. Bender provided some width on the right flank with Hilbert, but Lavezzi tracked back diligently to help keep them quiet. On the opposite wing, Lucas pinned Guardado back by occupying threatening positions, and the Mexican had to take a more cautious approach.

Another key difference in the two teams’ strategies lay in the play of their center forwards. For Leverkusen, Kießling stayed far forward but didn’t make many runs in behind because his main role was that of a target man, so Blanc’s men could push up in order to frustrate the German (they could especially afford to do this because Son and Sam often occupied similar positions, so Les Rouge-et-Bleu were closer to them and could hence slow them down more effectively, rendering the hosts’ attack rather ineffective).

On the other hand, Ibrahimović kept the opposition guessing: at times, he would drop deep or move into channels out wide; at other times, he’d stay further forward. Not only did this unsettle Bayer’s center backs and make it more difficult for them to position themselves well, but it also helped PSG keep the ball possession, as he either provided an extra body in the midfield or pinned the opposing defense back (even if his pace isn’t especially frightening, his ability to shoot from long range was another weapon that troubled Hyypiä’s side), thus opening up more space between the lines in which to pass the ball. Furthermore, the visitors’ pressing helped them win the football back more quickly when they lost it. The way in which they set up after losing the possession greatly enhanced this component of their game. Ibrahimović often dropped deeper or drifted out wide in these situations to provide cover for the energetic midfielders or the wingers, who moved up front to put pressure on the opposing defenders.

The next two goals involved Ibrahimović dropping deeper. On the first of these two plays, he was stationed outside of the penalty area, and Matuidi made a run into the box, but was followed by Toprak this time (probably because the hosts knew what he could do when not properly marked). When the ball came to Maxwell on the left flank, only Spahić was in a central position in front of the goal, so Lavezzi’s darting run to the near post put him in an uncomfortable situation, and the Bosnian gave the Argentinian a little nudge that sufficed to prompt the referee to (perhaps rather harshly) award a penalty kick. Ibrahimović stepped up to the spot and coolly converted the set piece.

On PSG’s third goal, Leverkusen opted not to follow Ibrahimović when he moved into a more withdrawn position and allowed him more space, instead focusing more on securing the box. However, the Swede made the hosts pay for this decision with a sensational left-footed blast from about 20 meters out. Once again, Matuidi’s run into the penalty area occupied a defender, leaving more space for his teammate to put his foot through the football. The hosts struggled to cope with Ibrahimović’s movement and trailed by a score of 3-0 at halftime.

At the end of the interval, Hyypiä made two substitutions, withdrawing Rolfes and Son to make way for Stefan Reinartz and Julian Brandt. The former of the two replacements provided more cover for the back line and could stay close to Ibrahimović when he dropped deep or drifted into space away from the center backs (who could now stay in their usual positions). The latter of the two substitutes offered a different option on the left flank, operating as more of a traditional winger rather than an inverted forward, giving Bayer’s attack more diversity.

The hosts improved significantly early on in the second half, but the tables turned when Spahić was booked a second time in the game (for a rather soft foul), resulting in a red card for the Bosnian defender. Needing another center back to partner Toprak, Hyypiä replaced Sam with Philipp Wollscheid. Due to the numerical disadvantage, Leverkusen was constantly thin in the midfield or up front (depending on Castro’s positioning: the German alternated between a role in the midfield and a more advanced position out wide). The hosts struggled to keep up with the visitors, who had a goal disallowed in the second half and added to their tally late on, as the substitute Yohan Cabaye wasn’t tracked (probably due to Castro’s positioning) and found the net from just inside of the box, scoring his first goal for his new club, as PSG won comfortably to all but secure a place in the Quarterfinals.

Before this game, there were doubts about whether Paris Saint-Germain would really be able to step up and perform on a stage as big as that of the Champions League amid suggestions that the defending Ligue 1 champions’ performances in domestic competitions may be a poor indicator of their ability. However, this match proved Les Parisiens are in the mix to win the title in Lisbon at the end of the season. They totally strolled through this encounter, demolishing a Bayer Leverkusen that struggled to deal with their various weapons and looks set to crash out of the competition at the end of the second leg in March. Blanc has his team playing superbly, and the French side is so tremendously flexible in a tactical sense that it can find a way to mask its own weaknesses and exploit its oppositions with remarkable efficiency. And arguably that’s what a cup competition like the Champions League Knockout Stage is all about. There may be bigger fish in the pond, but it wouldn’t be wise to count out PSG just yet.