What Bayern Munich need to do to overturn their 3-2 first leg defeat to PSG

When Paris Saint-Germain were pitted against Bayern Munich in the quarter-final of this season's Champions League, the footballing world offered a sympathetic head tilt towards Mauricio Pochettino's side.

You know the one. We've all involuntarily done it at one point in our lives, as if to say 'there there, things will get better one day, just stick at it old chap'.

Kylian Mbappe and co. had other ideas.

The French champions threatened to run away with the tie at one point, storming into a 2-0 lead as the Allianz Arena began to look increasingly like someone had switched to winter mode on FIFA.

Die Roten managed to drag their way back into the contest - an effort spearheaded by the sheer brilliance of Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting as the former Stoke man proved himself to be twice as good as usual first-choice frontman Robert Lewandowski - though Mbappe ultimately had the final word.

The Frenchman left Jerome Boateng looking like a parody of Paul Alcock shortly after being shoved in the chest by Paolo Di Canio (if you've no idea what we're on about then get out), stumbling backwards like Bambi before watching on helplessly as Mbappe fired his second of the game beyond Manuel Neuer to hand PSG the advantage at the halfway mark in the tie.

We shouldn't really have been shocked by the 3-2 scoreline given Les Parisiens' ridiculously talented squad, but such has been Bayern's dominance both domestically and continentally over the last 12 months, it was hard not to be taken aback by PSG's triumph.

Bayern have plenty of previous when it comes to overturning first-leg deficits - something the club's official Twitter account was quick to remind us of prior to Tuesday night's clash - and in truth they should be much better equipped to face Pochettino's men at Parc des Princes than they were little under a week ago.

Hansi Flick's side defended like a team who'd never watched a minute of PSG's lethal frontline in action during their first-leg defeat, adopting a ludicrously high line as Neymar and Mbappe ran riot.

The German champions appeared to learn their lesson as the contest wore on, but they were caught on the counter-attack with just 20 minutes to play as they pushed for a winning goal, as Mbappe burst clear to hand his side the win.

Flick's men will naturally be desperate to grab the game's first goal on Tuesday night as they look to book their place in the last four of the competition, but they need to be wary of the rapid PSG counter, and last week's defeat should have taught them that they can't afford to just flood forward and leave their backline exposed.

Aside from their naive defensive display, there really wasn't a lot wrong with Bayern's performance at the Allianz Arena last week.

Flick's side dominated possession and amassed a total of 31 shots on goal compared to the visitors' six - the game simply hinged on PSG being the more ruthless of the two teams.

Of course, without Lewandowski leading the line, Bayern are a far less prolific team than when the Polish hitman is fit and available for selection, but Die Roten carved out enough chances in the first leg to know PSG's backline can be exploited.

Individual errors also marred Bayern's performance, with Neuer fumbling Mbappe's first effort of the night into the back of the net - an error which was likely caused by the Bavarian blizzard the two sides found themselves trying to play through.

If Bayern want to progress to the semi-final of this season's Champions League, they need to be better at scoring goals, better at not conceding goals, and hope that it doesn't snow...how's that for a hot take?

But in all seriousness, there's still plenty of life left in this tie. If Bayern have learnt their lessons from the previous encounter with PSG, there's no reason whatsoever why they can't overturn their one-goal deficit from the first leg, and with an accomplished defensive performance you wouldn't bet against Die Roten outscoring PSG and advancing to the semi-final.