El PSG a feast was given in Tel Aviv at the expense of Nantes. The Parisians prevailed with solvency and overwhelming superiority (4-0) to the team from the banks of the Loire River, which reached the French Super Cup as champion of the Coupe. It didn’t do them much good to hold that title…because Messi, Neymar and Sergio Ramos gave a good account of ‘Les Canaris’.
It is true that PSG were already ‘in tune’ at the start of the season (full of victories in pre-season) but the first official match confirmed this. The ‘mtodo Galtier’ works (for now) despite the fact that the French coach has had to change things in his own script to adapt to the cast of stars in the French capital.
PSG goal recital: Messi, Neymar free kick and even Ramos high heels!
If the preseason had not been very demanding in terms of rivals, the first confrontation with a team from Ligue 1 has been passed with honors. From thrashing Japanese teams on their Asian tour to doing the same in the Trophe des Champions, a title that eluded them in 2021 against Lille. So what this time they did not have Mbapp, sanctioned for accumulation of yellow cards.
From 4-4-2 to 3-4-1-2
If Galtier had been characterized by a 4-4-2 quite strict in his previous stages (especially the last year in Nice, when he was PSG’s ‘black beast’ in the local championship), Paris has made him change.
The system deployed at this start of the course is an offensive 3-4-1-2 where the wingers enjoy absolute protagonism and the center of the field displays a vertical and daring football. The three centrals create a safety net that allows Galtier to deliver the band to Mendes y Judgeas well as leaving two ‘players’ in the center of the field as Vitinha y Verratti. Both have hit it off, and that’s good for PSG.
Messi, with freedom
The best news for PSG is Leo’s summer. With the idea of continuing together beyond 2023 on the table, the Argentine has returned from vacation with the aim of meeting the challenges that he could not achieve last season.
Galtier has put at your disposal a system that allows you to roam freely in the rival field. He goes down to receive and create play, falls to the right wing to initiate diagonals towards the rival area and throws walls with Neymar and Mbapp (Sarabia in the Super Cup, since Kylian was not there) with total naturalness.
In these first games it has been possible to see a comfortable Messi, smiling at the ball in each play and dribbling rivals with amazing ease. His goal against Lafont, a sample of it.
High pressure and constant siege
If something caught PSG’s attention in their first match, it was the intensity with which he overwhelmed Nantes. If Antoine Kombouar’s team offered little opposition it was because they never kept up with the pace set by Galtier’s team.
The people from the capital did not stop attacking and only Lafont avoided an even bigger thrashing. In addition to taking advantage of the spaces left by the Nantes defense, PSG also provoked them: the Parisians printed in the first half (especially) a high pressure that drowned out the ball output of their rivals.
Neymar, liking
He already said it a few days ago: “I want to stay at PSG.” Y Neymar He has decided to prove it on the field. His match against Nantes is a recital: dribbler as always, generator of chances… and scorer of two goals, one of them with a beautiful free kick.
In the absence of Mbapp, Neymar was Messi’s best partner at Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium. And seeing the drawing that Galtier poses on the pitch, an attack with all three seems possible… at least in Ligue 1. In the Champions League the famous ‘balance’ dictates sentence.
Look at Ramos…
The one from Camas seems to have left the terrible 2021/22 season behind. With only 13 games, last year was not his best letter of introduction in Paris. But as they say: a clean slate.
The central defender has started the season in France as a starter, and with a goal. And what a goal… Beyond the goal, a correct match took place in the right sector of the Parisian defense, where he had the difficult task of covering the back of Hakimi, who is usually a torpedo in attack and lives in the rival field.
He looks confident, in good physical condition and eager to make up for lost time. In addition, Marquinhos complements him and Kimpembe brings the physical exuberance that characterizes the young French central defenders that proliferate throughout Europe.
