Five minutes in, and that was the entire evening
Four matches into the season, Paris Saint-Germain had not won a Ligue 1 game. That ended on Sunday night with a 1-0 result at Brest, which closed out Matchday 4 and looked nothing like the way this club usually starts a campaign.
The goal came almost immediately. Joao Neves started a quick triangle, Ousmane Dembele backheeled it into space, and Ferran Torres hit a low strike past Selvik from 20 metres. The Spaniard was leading a rearranged front line with Dembele and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Luis Enrique having shuffled things after the 6-1 win over Slovan Bratislava in midweek.
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Two goalkeepers, and only one of them played for the winners
Selvik kept Brest in it almost single-handedly. He denied Dembele, then Kvaratskhelia in the 9th minute, then clawed away a curling Kvaratskhelia effort in the 23rd. He repeated the trick in the 69th and 71st against Neves twice. A more generous evening and Paris are out of sight by the hour mark.
After the break Brest actually looked the likelier side. Doumbia hit the post in the 50th following a loose Nuno Mendes clearance. Two minutes later a Locko own goal was chalked off for a Warren Zaire-Emery foul. Then Matvey Safonov got a single hand to a Doumbia header in the 57th, and shut out Pathe Mboup in the 88th.
Safonov’s last few weeks have been rough and heavily discussed. He answered where it counts. His team offered close to nothing after the half-hour, and he is the reason they left with three points.
Eighth place, and Hakimi limping off
Paris have 5 points and sit eighth, five behind a leading group of Lille, Monaco and Rennes. Four games is nothing in September. It is still a slower start than the champions have had in years.
Brest lost for the first time this season and stay seventh on the same 5 points. Selvik’s night and Mboup’s running give them something to build on.
The other thing Luis Enrique has to deal with: Achraf Hakimi came off injured in the 39th minute.
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