Above all, don’t talk to them about a pact! Questioned on July 3 by Le Parisien, Mauro Icardi kicked in touch: “No, there is no pact. But that is the goal of the club and all the players. There is no pact to make, it is created by itself. This oath between players to win everything this season does exist. It even goes beyond the Parisian locker room.
From the start of confinement, in mid-March, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, the president of PSG, fought more than the others to restart Ligue 1. While some leaders were divided or downright hostile to a recovery – those who ‘a ranking frozen at the 27th or 28th day arranged like the bosses of Marseille, Nice or Saint-Etienne -, the boss of PSG heated his phone to move heaven and earth. In all the meetings where he sits, Al-Khelaïfi, even from a distance, has struggled with an idea in his head.
For the Qatari, it was not a question of completing the championship with a view to the title that no other team could have won. No, everything was guided by the Champions League. More than ever, he feels that something is happening this season. He is thus convinced, and he has not always been in recent seasons, that Paris has a great chance of winning the Cup with big ears. The return against Dortmund, in the round of 16 second leg, convinced him: the airwaves are good, something is being created within the workforce.
Links that go beyond football
Al-Khelaïfi clearly sees what has been going on for months: the bond between the two best players of the team, Mbappé and Neymar, can prove to be brilliant; the whole group nourishes bonds which go beyond the framework of football; Line by line, the players are undoubtedly better than the previous seasons with a great goalkeeper for example (Navas), a very good left side (Bernat) and a few often magical substitutes (Sarabia). In short, for him, his training has everything to succeed and the restart of the L1 would have allowed Paris to accumulate rhythm for the future.
What the president of PSG did not imagine is that in parallel to his dream, the players have formulated the same and the case continues still, four months later. Since confinement, Thiago Silva’s partners have fed their common WhatsApp thread with a double goal: to refuse the drop in wages orchestrated by the club and to encourage each other to win the Champions League. Most of the messages went in this direction, from “This one is for us” to “We’re going to win it this year, that’s for sure”.
An obsession for European competition
The team resumed training on June 22 and this face-to-face belief has not diminished, on the contrary. Since they see each other and meet again – the joyous outings have resumed when the opportunity and the place are right – they only talk to each other about the Champions League. They are even obsessed with the competition, mostly satisfied with the draw that will see them face Atalanta Bergamo, a modest club but a very good opponent at the moment.
The good streak they are currently going through – stars in form, especially the duo of the two cracks; no injury – fuels their European design even more. First comes the Coupe de France as an appetizer. But beware, Paris is very hungry this summer. “The best way to get to Lisbon is to win titles,” supports Thomas Tuchel, interviewed this Thursday at a press conference at the Stade de France. It is the best preparation of a team. There are no more. Paris broadcasts a dream in summer and it begins Friday evening.
