Kylian Mbappe's 94th-Minute Goal Leads PSG Past Real Madrid in UCL Leg 1

For nearly 94 minutes, Paris Saint-Germain knocked and knocked and knocked at the door to no avail.

Then Kylian Mbappe finally broke through with a goal in the 94th minute, giving PSG a 1-0 win over Real Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League round-of-16 matchup.

From start to finish, it was a dominant effort from a PSG team determined to make good on its preseason hype. PSG outshot Real Madrid 21-3 and held its opponents scoreless as the Paris crowd impatiently waited on their team to break through.

PSG had seven different tries on corner kicks, spent most of the evening deep in attack mode and even sent Lionel Messi to the box for a 62nd-minute penalty try.

Nothing worked.

Thibaut Courtois played a stellar game in net for Madrid, highlighted by his correct read of Messi to block the penalty try and keep PSG at bay. With PSG once more on the attack in stoppage time, Courtois seemingly saved the game one final time with a stop of an Idrissa Gueye attempt from outside the box.

But as the desperation rose in the closing minutes, Mbappe took a pass from Neymar and found the left bottom corner of the net on a stellar shot.

PSG will now travel to Madrid in a little over three weeks, hoping to close things out and advance to the quarterfinals.

While there are few positives to take from the loss aside from Courtois' play, Madrid avoided disaster in what could have—and arguably should have—been a blowout. 

Thanks to the elimination of the away-goals rule, Madrid only has to worry about winning on aggregate goals when they play March 9—or in the event of a tie, during extra time or on penalty kicks, as needed.