A week after a Coupe de France final won in suffering against ASSE (1-0), PSG must already reinvent itself and indicate that it has changed. That’s good, he returns to the same place, the Stade de France, continues his exploration of Rhone football – after Saint-Etienne, Lyon – and will always seek to glean one more title.
It will be a League Cup and the year of its 50 years, the club of the capital can once again prove its punctuality: a quarter of a century ago, it won the first in history. He has the opportunity to remove the last one. A 9th when Lyon will try to register its name for the second time on the prize list. On the domestic market, the PSG version Qatar will have been an ogre and now is not the time to get rid of its habits.
The decor lends itself to this. It is the last game of the national season which began on August 9, 2019 and was interrupted for more than four months. It ends with one of the most beautiful posters possible, with the two most brilliant clubs of the last 20 years and two teams still in contention in the Champions League, each of which has Italian duties in August: to pass Juventus and aim quarterfinals for OL, get rid of Atalanta Bergamo for Paris and reach the semi-final. Europe, not just the possible qualification for a Europa League that Jean-Michel Aulas dreams of, will guide the debates.
Paris must regain a state of mind
In the meantime, the national treble, the first of Thomas Tuchel still virgin of any League Cup, would consolidate a confidence shaken by the loss of Kylian Mbappé, badly mown by Loïc Perrin last week. Fortunately, the team keeps morale, with less than two weeks of his return to the Champions League. Bergamo must be a springboard and Lyon arrive as a way to gain momentum before the big jump.
It is also an evening to prepare if it is not a tactic at least a state of mind. Pierced and fragile last week, Thomas Tuchel’s formation will seek to find a clear line articulated around a solid defense, an active environment and a recovered attack, all while perhaps changing the system since the 4 -2-4 is no longer possible without Mbappé and that it definitely offers too many drafts. Even on a hot day, it’s no longer serious.
The difficulty increases because Lyon is better on paper than the Greens, because it plays its European future and especially because Paris starts without its French world champion, best player in previous friendly matches. Even if Mbappé scratches time, you have to start winning without him and heat up the place.
