A 98th-minute Kylian Mbappe penalty earned Paris Saint-Germain a 1-1 Champions League draw with Newcastle United on Tuesday that keeps the French club in a position to qualify for the last 16 and leaves their opponents in serious danger of a group-stage exit.
It looked as though Newcastle — who won 4-1 when the sides met at St James’ Park last month — were going to leave Paris with all three points in the Group F encounter thanks to Alexander Isak’s 25th-minute opener.
PSG had run out of ideas by the time they were gifted an opportunity to salvage a draw in injury time when the VAR decided a Tino Livramento handball in the box was worthy of a penalty.
Mbappe made no mistake from the spot, and PSG hold onto second place in the group behind Borussia Dortmund, who won 3-1 away to AC Milan and are through to the last 16 already.
The French champions will join them with a win in Dortmund in their final group game next month, while Newcastle now have to win at home to Milan and hope PSG slip up.
Eddie Howe’s side would have been eliminated with a defeat here, so at least they remain in contention, while avoiding a third defeat in five group games allows PSG to hold off the threat of a first elimination from the Champions League before the last 16 in the Qatar era.
They have regularly struggled to impress in the Champions League in the last decade, but never as much as this season, and Mbappe’s late goal — his 17th of the season — got them out of jail here.
Mbappe, wearing the captain’s armband in the absence of the injured Marquinhos, often struggled to impact the game as he found himself squashed in between Newcastle defenders Kieran Trippier and Jamaal Lascelles.
The visitors set up to thwart the home side and the tactic mostly worked a treat, at least after PSG almost went in front inside nine minutes.
Achraf Hakimi linked up with Randal Kolo Muani down the Paris right before driving into the box and delivering a low centre for Mbappe, whose backheeled attempt was saved by Nick Pope
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