Maccabi Haifa vs PSG

Champions League Group H outsiders Maccabi Haifa and section favourites Paris Saint-Germain will meet each other in contrasting circumstances at the Sammy Ofer Stadium.

Despite enjoying a 100% four-game start to their Israeli Premier League title defence, Maccabi Haifa proved no match for Benfica in their Group H curtain-raiser. A 2-0 defeat in Portugal, accompanied by a mere two attempts on goal, has taken Haifa’s losing streak in the Champions League to seven matches. With each of those losses also seeing the ‘Greens’ fail to get on the scoresheet, Barak Bakhar’s side could set a piece of unwanted history come Thursday – no team in Champions League history has ever lost eight straight games without scoring. That prospect looks well inside the realm of possibility as they’ve lost both previous Champions League clashes against French opposition via an identical 1-0 scoreline.

By contrast, Paris Saint-Germain claimed a 2-1 home triumph over Juventus on matchday one and followed it up with a narrow 1-0 Ligue 1 win over Brest at the weekend. Unbeaten in all nine competitive fixtures under new manager Christophe Galtier (W8, D1), ‘Les Parisiens’ will be out to undo their underwhelming European record against Israeli opponents (W1, D1, L3). This trip will also serve as an opportunity for PSG to arrest a four-match winless streak in the Champions League away encounters (D2, L2). Though this should be another day in the office for the reigning Ligue 1 champions, it’s worth noting that PSG are without a Champions League clean sheet on the road in nine successive trips. That sounds meaningless, though, compared to the fact they’ve scored in their last 39 Champions League outings.