PSG’s home opener was played at Rennes, and a half-time substitute rescued it

Paris Saint-Germain were supposed to open the defence of their Ligue 1 title at home. Instead they spent Sunday two goals down at Roazhon Park, in a fixture that had been turned inside out four days earlier because the grass at the Parc des Princes had cooked.

They got out with a 2-2 draw, and only because a player who had not kicked a ball for them came on at half-time and scored twice.

A home game that stopped being a home game

The Ligue de Football Professionnel ratified the switch on 19 August, after an inspection of a surface PSG said had been wrecked by a run of heatwaves through the Paris region. The club’s own statement pointed at the most recent one accelerating the damage. So the reverse fixture was brought forward, Rennes became the hosts, and PSG’s season began with an away trip they had not planned for. A full relay of the Parc des Princes pitch is now the job before Monaco visit on 4 September.

Whether the venue had anything to do with what followed is anyone’s guess, but PSG played the first half like a team that had arrived somewhere unfamiliar. Sebastian Szymanski, who joined Rennes from Fenerbahce in January, hit them from distance in the ninth minute. Esteban Lepaul made it two on 38, finishing a cross from Przemyslaw Frankowski.

Luis Enrique emptied the bench at half-time

Two changes went on at the break. Ferran Torres was one of them, and Ousmane Dembele, who scored PSG’s equaliser in the Champions League final in May, was one of the players who came off. Mika Godts came on alongside Torres, on for Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. Fabian Ruiz and Maghnes Akliouche came on together on the hour.

Ruiz is the reason the scoreline changed. He put Torres in on 71 for the first, then crossed for him to finish the second on 82. He created three chances after coming on, more than any other PSG player managed all afternoon, which tells you plenty about the first hour.

For Torres it was a debut, and a strange one. He signed in the summer, off the back of scoring the goal that won Spain the World Cup, and had not appeared for PSG until Luis Enrique sent him on. Eleven minutes of the second half at Rennes and he had a brace and the match award.

“It was complicated, we’re not happy because we wanted to win, but it’s important to come away with a point,” he said afterwards, which is the correct thing to say and also, given how the first half went, an understatement.

Rennes should have won it

The last real chance was theirs. Ludovic Blas got his head to a ball and beat Matvey Safonov with it, and Willian Pacho got back to clear off the line. A point each, and Rennes the ones who will feel they left something behind.

PSG have won the Champions League in each of the last two seasons, the second of those on penalties against Arsenal in Budapest at the end of May, and they went into this season having taken five straight Ligue 1 titles. None of that helped them for 45 minutes on a pitch they were not expecting to play on. It is one point out of three in August, which nobody will remember by May, but the shape of the afternoon is the kind of thing a squad notices.

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