Tuchel stands up to player power at PSG

Coach benched Mbappe for win over Marseille

Paris St-Germain coach Thomas Tuchel made a bold move by standing up to big names at a club where player power usually rules.

He dropped 19-year-old France forward Kylian Mbappe, widely tipped as football’s next superstar, and midfielder Adrien Rabiot for the game at Marseille on Sunday night.

Both players are Parisianborn and fully understood the importance of the match for PSG fans against the club’s bitter rivals. Yet both turned up late to a prematch team talk, and Tuchel left them out of the starting line-up.

“(It was) a disciplinary situation. We needed to do that,” Tuchel said.

Mbappe came off the bench in the second half and scored the first goal in a 2-0 win, which sent PSG to an 11th straight league win. It was also the World Cup star’s 10th league goal so far, in just seven games for him.

Rabiot, who refused to be on France’s reserves list for the World Cup and has long been negotiating a new PSG contract, came on about 10 minutes from time.

Despite his authoritative decision-making, which was backed by PSG winger Julian Draxler, the coach was surprisingly downbeat and sounded almost despondent after the game. “I don’t like playing without Kylian,” he said. “I hate it.”

It has been a topsy-turvy week for Tuchel. The 2-2 home draw with Napoli in the Uefa Champions League on Wednesday leaves PSG third in their group and in danger of not qualifying for the round of 16. If so, Tuchel would become the first PSG coach knocked out of the group stage in the last few years. On the other hand, his team are coasting in the league.