Since the arrival of Luis Enrique on the bench, the capital club has reviewed its ambitions. By lowering expectations, he may have managed to get PSG back on track.
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What if PSG had really changed something this season? By aiming for the heights and falling from heights year after year, the capital club announced the start of a new era this summer. New coach, new life and above all new strategy. No, “the Champions League is not an obsession”. Captain Marquinhos showed the color before the first meeting in the competition, mid-September. These comments are far from trivial in a club which announced that it was aiming for a coronation within five years upon the arrival of Qatari investors in 2011.
By beating Real Sociedad to qualify for the quarter-finals, PSG have, on paper, accomplished a mission well within their reach. The opponent was inferior to him and had not won a home match since November 26. But, for the capital club, nothing ever comes naturally on the European scene. The comebacks suffered against Chelsea (2014), Barça (2017), Manchester United (2019) and Real Madrid (2022) have left indelible scars. To the point that observers ended up saying that, no matter if he did things well, Paris Saint-Germain would always end up disillusioned.
“We have no pressure”
Tuesday evening, he managed to do the job over 180 minutes without panicking in the face of the fervor of the Basque supporters. It has been eight years since Paris last won both the first leg and the second leg, in the knockout phase of the Champions League (during the quarter-finals of the 2016 edition against Chelsea). As the qualification was acquired without trembling, naturally there was satisfaction in Anoeta’s meanderings. “We offered a very high level performance this evening, as a team”noted President Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, whose presence in the mixed zone is not anecdotal.
A good loser, Real Sociedad coach Imanol Alguacil was very complimentary of his opponent: “Their high pressing is incredible. They are a fantastic team (…). If they play like they played tonight, they are as good as Real Madrid or Manchester City”. Not enough to set Luis Enrique on fire. The latter’s speech did not change one iota when he had to respond at a press conference to a question asking him if he saw his team capable of reaching the final. “An illusion never made anyone win. We have no pressure because we have never won the Champions League. It is the others who have the pressure”he decided.
“Everything is going very well” between Enrique and Mbappé
No tension in the locker room either if we are to believe the actors, also reflecting the good atmosphere displayed in recent hours during training, even despite the flammable nature of everything related to Kylian Mbappé. Luis Enrique juggles between the art of dodging and the status of lightning rod, voluntarily attracting the annoyance of certain media. After his exit at half-time of the match in Monaco, Kylian Mbappé cut short any form of conflict. “Everything is going very well with the coach, even if people may think otherwise with the events. I have many problems, but the coach is not one of them”tempered at the microphone of Canal + the one who had appeared laughing and quiet the day before in training.
After the departures of stars Lionel Messi and Neymar, before the announced departure of Kylian Mbappé this summer, the 2023-2024 season is a season of strategic transition. Even if PSG were to take the door in the next round against a tougher opponent, they have already managed to do better than in their two previous seasons. Above all, after the weariness, milestones have been laid for the future, at a time when the youngest team in the history of PSG in C1 has just been aligned. There is something better, which only needs to be confirmed.