Forget Paris?
Touch-and-go for Tuchel’s Champions League objective
The UEFA Nations League has undoubtedly changed the international break for the better but international soccer still comes at a cost for clubs. There was something frustratingly similar for many teams across Europe when they counted the cost of their players’ exertions for their countries in the most recent hiatus from domestic soccer.
Nowhere more so than in Paris where Thomas Tuchel will have had his head in his hands and not just because his countrymen had followed up their humiliating World Cup group-stage exit to South Korea with Nations League relegation at the first attempt.
Important week
Instead it will have been the news that 19-year-old World Cupwinning wonderkid Kylian Mbappe was taken off for France in their friendly against Uruguay. The teenage sensation fell awkwardly on the Stade de France pitch after leaping Uruguay goalkeeper Marin Campana. Mbappe immediately asked to be substituted, giving his club boss a headache as he looks towards an important week in the French capital.
As if Tuchel’s Tuesday night could not have got any more troubling, that headache became more of a migraine when Neymar lasted just eight minutes against Cameroon for Brazil before leaving the pitch with what appeared to be a groin strain. The German PSG coach will not have been worried for his side’s next game – they face Toulouse in Ligue 1 on Saturday – but a date with Champions League destiny next Tuesday.
PSG host Liverpool on Matchday 5 and Group C is all to play for. Napoli and Liverpool are in the driving seat on six points each with the French champions a point behind, just one ahead of bottom side Red Star Belgrade. The Parisians travel to the Serbian capital on the final day knowing that they can take nothing for granted against Red Star in the intense atmosphere of the Marakana. Liverpool found that out to their cost in the last round of matches as the hosts won 2-0.
Toulouse should prove no problem for Tuchel and his team, whatever team he puts out. PSG have played 13, won 13 and sit 13 points clear at the top of the table. They will finish the season as champions once again – there is no doubt of that.
This is not a club that has had all of the investment it has to win the French championship. Instead, they need to make their presence felt on the continental stage. It is a similar situation to the one at Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City where Pep Guardiola was brought in and given whatever he wanted in order to establish the club among Europe’s elite. Arguably, the Catalan coach and his club are further along that road than the champions across the English Channel.
Going deep into the Champions League is the expectation from PSG’s owners Qatar Sports Investment. When they took over in 2011, it was becoming a European powerhouse that was targeted, not being dominant on the domestic front.
Big-name coaches
This was the task for the big names that came before him. Carlo Ancelotti was the first brought in to ensure that they elbowed their way into a seat at Europe’s top table. They qualified for the Champions League under him for the 2012-13 season where they lost to Barcelona in the quarterfinals.
Laurent Blanc was next in the hot seat. Again the Parisians topped their group in the 2013-14 season and again they fell at the quarterfinal stage, this time to Chelsea. Progress to the knockouts followed in 2014-15 as did losing to Barcelona in the quarters and it was a sense of deja vu in 2015-16 with Manchester City edging a quarterfinal between the Middle Eastowned arrivistes.
PSG then turned to a Spanish coach of their own in Unai Emery. Despite winning the first leg in Paris 4-0, his side fell at the first knockout stage when they came up against a Neymar-inspired Barcelona in the second leg of an epic contest. If you can’t beat them, buy them, and so it was that Neymar joined the Paris project but despite winning their group stage last season, they went out to eventual winners Real Madrid in the first knockout stage.
Make-or-break
Now it is Tuchel’s turn. Paris has got everything but a Champions League win and that is why Tuchel can call upon players such as Neymar and Mbappe, two players who are expected to challenge for the Ballon d’Or when the Messi and Ronaldo dominance of the last decade finally ends for good. The biggest worry for Tuchel is that he likely won’t be able to call on either of them for this make-or-break game against the Merseysiders.
There is little doubt they are needed for PSG’s best chance to progress. The Brazilian has netted 15 goals and provided six assists in 17 appearances across all competitions for his club this season. World Cup winner Mbappe has bagged 17 goals and laid on six assists in 18 club games.
Both players returned to PSG where they subsequently underwent tests with the club’s medical staff. Neymar, who had reassured fans on social media that his injury was “nothing serious,” was diagnosed with a “right adductor strain.” Mbappe, meanwhile, was suffering from a “bruised right shoulder.” That led to a period of 48 hours of intensive treatment for the pair before the weekend and further evaluations. Tuchel will no doubt have been counting every one of them.