A final in November? There is no such thing in football, at least not in manageable latitudes and in major competitions. If a coach conjures up the spirit of a final in November, as Thomas Tuchel from Paris Saint-Germain does before the home game against RB Leipzig in the Champions League, the fourth preliminary round game in Group H, then a lot must have gone wrong by then . It’s all about everything again too soon, about the essence, which at PSG is only based on the handle pot – or as the Qatari owners see it: on power.
Paris had only just been in the final in Lisbon (0: 1 against Bayern), happy and liberated, with a hallelujah to the collective spirit of a troop of dearly bought individualists, which they found late. Now “Ici, c’est Paris!”, The battle cry of the Parisians, which is supposed to act like a statement to the world, has become quiet again, almost afraid, in November already: three points after three games, third place in the table. In the Parc des Princes, Tuesday is actually about almost everything.
It is therefore worth quoting Tuchel in full, with context. Late Friday evening, Monaco: League leaders PSG had in the top game of League 1After losing eight wins to Niko Kovac AS 2: 3 – “strange”, said Tuchel. He could have been angry with his players, but he was just surprised, somehow helpless. At the break, PSG had led 2-0 after two goals from Kylian Mbappé, who played well again after his injury. Total control, an ideal structure for the really important things.
But then PSG collapsed like a soufflé, and Kevin Volland became the match winner out of nowhere. The striker, who has moved from Leverkusen to Monaco, scored two goals and took a penalty. Paris had fallen apart completely, as it often happened recently in Europe, in the first leg in Leipzig (1: 2 after 1: 0) and before that against Manchester United (1: 2). In a way that shouldn’t really happen to a large team.
The newspaper The Parisian asked a mental trainer for explanations after the defeat in Monaco, and he sounded like a psychoanalyst. The title of the interview: “Does PSG lose their head during the games?” Well, the expert came to the not surprising conclusion that it is primarily the task of the coach to motivate his players and to keep their tension high. Otherwise such poor concentration sets in, sometimes because of an excess of self-confidence, sometimes because of a lack of it.
Tuchel was surprised that his team plunged into a 45-minute sleep in the second half. The substitution of Neymar didn’t change anything, who seems to be in a phase of what-I’m-actually-doing-here: still completely out of shape after his latest injury, listless – even his new hairstyle is boring. When Tuchel was asked whether the clear round on the Riviera had increased his doubts before the game against Leipzig, he said: “I know my team, I know exactly where we stand.” And: “We’ll try to orchestrate things, we can win against Leipzig. It’s a final and we will prepare this game like a final.”
For Tuchel it is also a personal final, his contract expires next summer. Nobody believes that the German will stay longer, on the contrary: If Paris flew out of the premier class in the group stage, “Tüschel” would probably also fly. The newspaper The team even thinks that TT would already be gone if these pandemic times weren’t so financially complicated. All income collapses; Even the club bosses from Qatar are more conservative in their calculations; a change of coach in a crisis costs a lot of money. And the man who was supposed to support Tuchel, sports director Leonardo, a former player glory of the club, finds this particularly difficult. The two feud in a Gockelkampf with intermediate half-reconciliations.
Tuchel accuses “Leo” of letting go of too many supports of the team in the summer: Thiago Silva, Cavani, Meunier, Choupo-Moting. He only replaced them half-heartedly, the newcomers who arrived late are Florenzi, Kean, Danilo, Rafinha. This is now taking its toll, especially since those who could give the game an identity are also indisposed in the control center. For example the Italian Marco Verratti, a fine ball distributor whom she loves in Paris little owl call it, little owl because it keeps moving its head to look for the best face option.
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