Carlo Ancelotti, Laurent Blanc, Unai Emery, Thomas Tuchel … Is Mauricio Pochettino’s PSG the worst of the QSI era?

Coaching is far from easy. This is perhaps even more true for whoever occupies the bench of PSG. A club that nurtures the highest ambitions with exceptional resources. In office for a little over a year, Mauricio Pochettino was able to realize the phenomenon. If his training is firmly established at the top of the Ligue 1 standings, it suffers a significant wave of criticism at each of its outings, or almost. This paradox is nothing new. From Carlo Ancelotti to Thomas Tuchel via Unai Emery and Laurent Blanc, all of the Argentine’s predecessors who lasted at least a year under the QSI era have faced it.

The requirement may seem disproportionate when it comes to PSG. It is as much about results as it is about how. To make a caricature, this club is supposed to win all its matches by offering the most attractive game. This is Pochettino’s challenge, like that of all coaches who came to Paris before him under the QSI era. But the Argentinian is probably the one who arouses the most expectations as his workforce still seems superior to what the club in the capital has known so far. Yet his PSG may be the worst since the Qatari owner arrived. At all levels.

Balance sheet

• 1. Unai Emery
  2,42 points / match
  2.74 goals scored / match
  0.81 goals conceded / match

From a purely statistical point of view, it is under the management of the Spaniard that PSG have been the most efficient. In all competitions, Emery has the best points average for a Parisian coach under the QSI era, and shares the best goals scored average with Thomas Tuchel. This may seem paradoxical for a coach who had given up the title of champion in Monaco in 2017 and who has never passed the stage of the knockout stages of the Champions League with Paris. The purely figures put him at the top of the coaches under the QSI era, but not his record in Ligue 1 and C1.

• 2. Laurent Blanc
  2,36 points / match
  2.26 goals scored / match
  0.73 goals conceded / game

The Chairman’s balance sheet quite similar to those of Emery and Thomas Tuchel. If there are significant differences to be seen with the Spaniard and the German, it is in the average goals scored, lower under the Frenchman, and that in goals conceded, the best for a coach under the QSI era. The former coach of the Blues has, above all, almost got hold of all the possible domestic titles in Paris. Only the Coupe de France 2014 escaped him. Blanc has also systematically qualified PSG for the quarter-finals of the Champions League. But he never got past this stage.

• 3. Thomas Tuchel
  2,35 points / match
  2.74 goals scored / match
  0.9 goals conceded / game

The German technician’s record is very slightly lower than those of Emery and White on the average points per game, but his case perfectly illustrates the limit of the figures. Because Tuchel is the one who had the most successful season among PSG coaches under the QSI era in 2020, reaching the Champions League final, a first in the history of the club, after winning the title of champion of France, the Coupe de France and the Coupe de la Ligue. After a perfect season match, Tuchel had however had a more delicate first year despite the title, with elimination in the round of 16 of C1 and a defeat in the final of the Coupe de France.

• 4. Mauricio Pochettino
  2,21 points / match
  2.22 goals scored / match
  0.98 goals conceded / game

So far, there isn’t much to argue for the Argentinian. Only Carlo Ancelotti did worse than him on average points and goals scored per game, and it was under his leadership that Paris recorded their highest average of goals conceded per game. The loss of the title to Lille last season further tarnishes its record. But he is enhanced by the qualification for the semi-finals of the Champions League last spring, after eliminating Barça and Bayern, and his current first place in L1. While waiting for the next few months which will define the success, or not, of his career at PSG if he were to leave next summer.

• 5. Carlo Ancelotti
  2,13 points / match
  2.03 goals scored / match
  0.94 goal conceded / game

It is totally logical to find the Italian in last place on the statistical record of Parisian coaches under the QSI era. PSG were a huge job when they were appointed to replace Antoine Kombouaré in January 2012. The current Real Madrid coach did not have the quality and depth of staff of his successors. He has also made a clear contribution to their success by raising the level of requirements and professionalization of a club that started from (very) far in these two areas. This did not prevent him from being champion and quarter-finalist of the C1 for his only full season at the club, in 2012-13.

Expression collective

It was under his leadership that PSG had a really marked style. A possession game embodied by the Motta-Verratti-Matuidi trio in the midfield, which guaranteed both ball control and the defensive strength of the capital club. A perfectly clear game plan in an unchanging 4-3-3 system that the French coach was obviously wrong to abandon for the Champions League quarter-final second leg against Manchester City in 2016. The White era n ‘The fact remains that where the success of PSG was also based on its collective superiority, beyond the quality of its individualities.

Like Blanc, Tuchel has a very marked playing philosophy, even if it is different from that of the Frenchman. The German tried to set up his famous counter-pressing in Paris despite the constraints, in particular attackers not sufficiently concerned by the defensive work and the imbalance of a depopulated workforce in the midfield. For this, he had to juggle the different systems and the profile of the men, often lining up a 4-4-2 to highlight his attacking individualities and putting Marquinhos back in the middle to balance his team. Tuchel was not really able to follow through on his ideas, but his PSG still exuded a playing identity.

The Italian is in a totally different register from Blanc and Tuchel, which is much more pragmatic. This style of play may seem easier to set up, but the Italian’s worksite was ultimately much larger than that of his successors. After legitimately fumbling, he finally succeeded in his business in the second half of the 2012-13 season, culminating in the Champions League quarter-final return to Barcelona (1-1), where Paris competed. in the game with one of the references of the moment despite its elimination, mainly due to its lack of realism.

The Spaniard had intentions, but he pushed them into the background after a first season marked by the loss of the title to Monaco in Ligue 1, and the cataclysm experienced in Barcelona in the round of 16 second leg of the Champions League . With the arrivals of Neymar and Kylian Mbappé the following seasons, he mainly sought to set up a system to promote the trio formed by the Brazilian, the French and Edinson Cavani rather than impose the philosophy of play that had made his success. in Seville. Emery has thus “suffered” his workforce more than he acted on.

The Argentinian has been in place for a year but his PSG is still just as unreadable. It is all the more obvious that Pochettino had imposed himself in the Premier League by the style of play that he had been able to give to Southampton and then to Tottenham. For the moment, it does not happen in Paris. Of all the teams in the QSI era, his is the most muddled when it comes to outgoing balls, the most difficult to resist the opposing pressing, the least consistent in the positioning of the players to crisscross the field and the most dependent on his individualities. It is almost a collective nothingness with the best workforce of the Qatari era. But at least his PSG can only improve …