PSG superstars need more teamwork, says striker Cavani
MONACO: Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani says Paris SaintGermain’s team of dazzling individuals including Neymar and Kylian Mbappe need to work more as a team if they are to win the Champions League.
In an exclusive interview with AFP, Cavani said the importance of winning the Champions League for the French club was drummed into him even before he signed from Napoli in 2013.
“It’s an objective that the club discussed with me before I signed the contract,” he said ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League Group C clash in Naples.
“It is in my head. It f lows through my veins. I want to win it because that is the job that was presented to me when I came (to PSG).”
PSG’s domination of Ligue 1 – they have won five of the past six championship titles – allows them to prepare well for their ultimate goal of winning Europe’s premier club competition.
But the Champions League has produced nothing but heartbreak for PSG and their Qatari owners, who have plunged millions in the club in the hope of creating one of the continent’s top sides.
PSG’s hopes ended at the quarterfinals four years in succession from 2013-2016, and at the last 16 in the past two campaigns.
Coach Unai Emery was fired last summer and left for Arsenal after failing to bring the trophy to Paris and new coach Thomas Tuchel has inherited the task of realising the dream.
Tuchel has brought the emphasis on teamwork to PSG’s training ground, said Cavani.
“He has a wonderful mentality and likes to win with a strong team structure,” said the 31-year- old, voted PSG player of the year in 2017.
“He wants everyone to play together and that is what is important for me.”
Cavani cited Atletico Madrid and Juventus as clubs who play together with the kind of robust, disciplined teamwork that Tuchel is trying to instil into PSG.
“That does not mean that we ( PSG) do not work together,” said Cavani, whose star has declined since fellow strikers Neymar, the world’s most expensive player, and teenage sensation Mbappe joined him in attack.
But Cavani denied there was friction.
“We are a work in progress,” he said.
“That does not mean I don’t get on with Neymar or Mbappe. I hope that work with the new coach can give the per fect structure to produce a big season – all together.” — AFP