Who runs the show?
Hard to say who holds most influence at PSG after tense week
It was the managerial equivalent of missing an open goal.
With a golden opportunity to address what’s going wrong at Paris St Germain, coach Thomas Tuchel sent the ball wide of the post by protecting the players who let him down so badly.
Last week’s humiliating Champions League defeat to Manchester United still feels very raw to the fans, yet Tuchel surprisingly dismissed it as a one-off “accident .”
Try telling that to the hundreds of fans lining up to barrack the players when they arrived at training last Sunday.
Their deep disappointment was further compounded by the fact the players were reportedly given three days off following arguably the club’s most embarrassing defeat, two years after the 6-1 loss in Barcelona. Sports daily L’Equipe said midfielder Marco Verratti went to Ibiza and goalkeeper Alphonse Areola visited London.
After all, why let a chastening defeat and furious fans ruin a planned break?
A club with the lofty ambition of dominating European football needs a structure to do so.
Yet it’s hard to know who carries most influence at PSG.
Is it Tuchel? Is it Neymar? Is it the virulent ultras eventually allowed impromptu into the stadium on Sunday to scream their discontent so close to the players? Is it president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, who seems to overly indulge Neymar and these ultras?
Since injuring his right foot again, Neymar has danced at his own birthday party, attended Rio carnival festivities, and launched a vehement rant at refereeing officials following the video review that led to United’s late penalty winner. UEFA are investigating the matter.
The club may hope cutting Neymar as much slack as possible increases his chances of staying at PSG, amid regular reported interest from Real Madrid.
But he hardly reassured fans during an interview with Brazilian TV, where he evoked the lure of Real and said “anything’s possible” in the future.
Although he stated he is happy at PSG the timing of the interview, just days before the return leg against United, was ill-judged.
When PSG allowed ultras back into the stadium the decision surprised some, not least local matchday police.
It took several years of hefty security measures to finally eradicate the club’s long-standing hooliganism problem, one which led to a PSG supporter being shot and killed in 2006 after a UEFA Cup match and another beaten to death in 2010 following clashes between opposing factions within PSG’s support.
The reason for allowing ultras back was to infuse PSG’s sedate, theatre-like stadium, with the type of feverish passion associated with working-class St Etienne, for example, or Strasbourg.
But the ultras repaid the club’s renewed faith in a strange way.
In October, they left a Champions League game five minutes early in droves in order to attack Red Star Belgrade’s fans as they left the stadium.
Still, PSG’s ultras did their bit encouraging the players relentlessly throughout last Wednesday’s debacle.
Defender Presnel Kimpembe, whose handball led to United’s penalty, addressed his team’s performance in a YouTube video on Sunday.
The same day, striker Kylian Mbappe gave a TV interview pledging he’ll stay next season amid reports of strong interest from re-hired Real coach Zinedine Zidane
One interview was club-sanctioned, the other apparently not.
Kimpembe’s video was made of his own initiative and in it the centre half mentioned complacency from PSG’s players before the United loss.
With gravitas in his voice, he also pledged PSG would return to the top.
Using France’s national team as an example, Kimpembe explained how Les Bleus went from failing to qualify for the World Cup in 1994 to winning it in 1998; then being knocked out early in 2002 and 2010 before winning it again last year.
Nice idea, wrong comparison. France have won two World Cups and two European Championships, but PSG have never won the Champions League and never even reached a final. — AP