Close the gate: how Safonov and Golovin performed in the Champions League

In the final round of the Champions League, Matvey Safonov played his second match for PSG this season and again kept his goal intact. Now Matvey has a chance to oust Luca Chevalier from the base. Alexander Golovin helped Monaco defeat Galatasaray, leaving the French club struggling to reach the playoffs. Another of our compatriots, Egor Sorokin, played the full 90 minutes for Kairat, but his team lost to Olympiacos.

No mistakes

With the arrival of Chevalier, the Russian turned into the iron second number of PSG. No, he wasn't the first under Donnarumma last season either, but he played noticeably more often. By December 2024, Safonov had played six official matches for Luis Enrique's team, and he met this winter with an uncompromising zero.

Matvey did not express public dissatisfaction and continued to work, waiting for the opportunity to enter the field, which finally came to him due to the ankle injury of the main goalkeeper, received at the end of November. An almost seven-month pause in playing for the club was interrupted by a home meeting with the strong Rennes in the French championship. By that time, Paris's opponent was on a four-match winning streak, and had not lost on the road since the summer. Slowly, even claims to the Champions League zone began to surface. In general, there were enough reasons for concern.

In reality, it turned out quite differently — grand simply beat his opponent 5 without a chance.:0. Safonov looked confident and made two saves, one of which, incredibly spectacular and heavy in the 28th minute, anticipated the scoring attack to open the account. That is, it was the save that significantly influenced the further development of events. The situation with the passes remains imperfect, but the Russian has no problems with a short pass — he makes the right decisions, does not tremble and acts almost without marriage. The difficulty is only with long takeaways — three accurate out of eight.

The most important thing is that there are no obvious errors. The goalkeeper does not give the impression of a reservist at all and does not give partners any reason to worry unnecessarily during defensive periods.

Actually, public praise from the head coach would not have been born out of the blue either.

— I really liked how he showed himself. His dedication, professionalism, dedication — everything was great. He did it.

A few days later, Safonov's second match of the season took place — in the Champions League on the road against Athletic. And here the attackers failed with their primary duty, Paris did not come up with goals. Not that the hosts posed any particular threat, but the goalkeeper still accumulated 0.77 prevented goals.

The <url> portal gave the goalkeeper a score of 7.7, thereby making him the best player of the team and the third among all players. From the point of view of psychology, it is necessary to focus on one more thing — Safonov is back with a cracker, as well as with Rennes.

Let's summarize how the two appearances of the Russian in the PSG goal turned out. He never missed, earned the admiration of the coach and the fans, made one fantastic save, was involved in building attacks and generally corresponded to the level of the environment. Is it really possible to cope better? It seems that this is the maximum that can be expected.

Then a logical question arises: how to react if the Chevalier recovers and puts Safonov back on the bench? He showed patience and, as Enrique emphasized, professionalism, and not for the first time. Safonov didn't complain even in the summer when he was openly forced out of the club. Then I humbly trained and studied the seats of the Parc des Princes. And as a result, having achieved entry onto the field, he demonstrated a decent, high-quality and, without exaggeration, cool game.

In addition, do not forget that Chevalier actually started making mistakes right from the first matches, and sometimes it was absolutely fantastic in a bad way - in a meeting with Barcelona, for example, Lucas missed one goal and did not make a single save, although there were three shots on target. The defenders had to help out. The defeat against Marseille is actually purely his fault, he made a mistake on the way out. Not very encouraging data.

Naturally, this is not about the fact that the Frenchman should not crawl out of the reserve list. No. He's really good, and his strengths are the envy of many of his colleagues. But now the football world has been clearly shown that there is a comparable alternative.

Tasks with stars: how Russian legionnaires finish the year in European competitions

Safonov — with Athletic, Golovin — with Galatasaray, Khaykin — with Borussia

Three points

Monaco, another French club, scored a crucial 1-0 victory over Galatasaray in the Champions League home match and rose to 18th place in the overall table. Alexander Golovin started the game and spent 81 minutes on the field without showing any results.

For some reason, French-language publications gave our footballer the lowest rating among his partners, both the famous L'Equipe and the local newspaper, which can be translated as "Morning Monaco". It is difficult to agree with the opinion of foreign colleagues. Yes, Golovin didn't become the hero of the evening, but he certainly wasn't the worst either.

Golovin, as a left attacking midfielder, was active in his movements, offered himself to teammates for passes, and did not shy away from the fight. Colleagues from the Italian La Gazzetta dello Sport gave him a 6.0, that is, "satisfactory". Three other players received the same score in Monaco, and one of them was the author of Balogun's only goal. The assessment of our legionnaire's performance by Italian colleagues seems to me more objective than the opinion of French-language publications.

Golovin enjoys authority among his teammates, which was evident from various little things both during the warm-up and in the game. The fans respect him too: right in front of my eyes, one of them bought four T-shirts with a "ten" on the back at once.

If Monaco is clearly not in its (seventh) place in the table in the French championship, then it retains a good chance of getting into the play-offs in the Champions League. In any case, the second-half sample team against Galatasaray may well compete at home with unstable Juventus on January 28. A week before that, Golovin's team played away against Real Madrid. So Alexander will have two very interesting and high-profile matches in the main European club tournament right after the start of 2026. We are looking forward to it.