Pays de Cassel 0-7 PSG: Mbappe scores 5, Paris advance

PSG trashed sixth-tier team Pays de Cassel and defeated the minnows 0-7 away from home in the French Cup Round of 32. Kylian Mbappe scored five goals against the northern side on his way to breaking a PSG record as the only player to score as many goals in a single match for the Parisian club.

In a game without any sort of story to it, PSG delivered a seven-goal blow and lit the fireworks up while the folks from Pays de Cassel were happy just watching the spectacle.

On a postponed game played on Monday evening with all other French Cup clashes from the Round of 32 taking place over the weekend, PSG at least proved the FFF concession right and put on a historic cup match.

Coach Christophe Galtier had teased his team's plans for Monday in his weekend press conference: PSG won't play kid games and would instead feature all of their best players. And that was indeed the case.

Neymar and Mbappe started and logged a full 90 minutes. Quite a stretch, one could say considering the opposition... Alas.

Kylian Mbappe made history as the first player to score five goals in one match for Paris Saint-Germain

Amateur players from Pays de Cassel and World Cup participants from Paris Saint-Germain met in a sold-out Stade Bollaert to put on a heart-warming affair for the first 30 minutes of play. There was the pre-kick-off ceremony, the full staff (players and coaches) from PdC taking pictures before the game and on the ground of Lens, the exchange of passes between Mbappe and a few young people from siding with the amateurs, etc...

At the end of the day, though, it'd be Kylian Mbappe--he of the five goals scored by the same player for the first time in a PSG game--undoing Pays de Cassel in a way never seen before. Things will change in the future with PSG facing Olympique Marseille in the Round of 16, though.

Without Lionel Messi (and Gigio Donnarumma) in the matchday squad but Neymar and Mbappe starting, that's all PSG needed to demolish their (quite) lesser opponent on Monday.

No team forced things just one bit. There was mutual respect until Neymar slapped a rival in the face (which is becoming a worrying and bizarre trend). Nothing changed a lot from that point on, other than PSG scored on and on and on. So much so that even Carlos Soler found his way to the scoreboard with a backheel goal in the second half of the game.

Mbappe opened the can in the 29th minute and it went all downhill for Pays de Cassel from that moment on. Less than five minutes later the French leader had already bagged his second. Neymar missed a double chance, but nobody batted an eye because the Brazilian has accustomed us to that. He scored one, though, so kudos to Ney for that.

Both teams went to the locker room with PSG already having a four-goal lead in their bag, which is telling of a Cup clash in which one team plays Ligue 1 matches weekly and the other one does so in the sixth division of the French ranks in front of (tops) a 1,000 fans.

Everybody (nearly) got to play in the end, with cameos by Juan Bernat in exchange for an extraordinary (and not rusty at all after recovering from injury) Nuno Mendes, the returning Arab-of-the-Year Achraf Hakimi, an invisible Fabian Ruiz (once more, and subbing in for another returnee in Timothee Pembele), Bitshiabu, and French-Spaniard Ismael Gharbi.

On to more important things PSG go. Even the very own Galtier said so after the game, revealing that "we're not going to make an analysis or take stock of this match because obviously the opponents we're going to play in the coming weeks will be opponents of a different quality."

You bet they are, starting with a matchup against OM on Feb. 7.