Paris SG is out of the Champions League for another year. It is useless to have the two most expensive players on the planet (he paid 222 million to Barça for Neymar and 180 to Monaco for Mbappe) or the best soccer player on the planet: Leo Messi. It is a very expensive team to walk around France.
He wins in his country and crashes in Europe, unable to articulate a successful sports project, with almost 1,600 million euros invested since Qatar took over the club, seeing up to six coaches parade since 2012. Six technicians (Ancelotti, Blanc, Emery, Tuchel, Pochettino and Galtier) in a decade. All crashing into a club that has had the best players, but has never been the best team in Europe, thrown out by the modern and choral Bayern that Nagelsmann has built.
1) Failure by system
So much money invested each year had only one objective: to win the Champions League. But except in 2020, when in the midst of a pandemic they lost the Lisbon final against Bayern, PSG did not find the formula to reach the top. It has gone from bad to worse. He has been eliminated in the round of 16 for the fifth time in the last seven editions, which betrays his decline because he cannot see the exit to that labyrinth in which he is submerged.
And, furthermore, he leaves this season without having scored a single goal against Bayern in 180 minutes. A drama in attack while he becomes weak and transparent in defense. It is the first time that he has not scored in a direct European tie since 1995 when he lost to Milan by the same result as against the Bavarian team: 0-1 and 2-0. He has settled, as he wrote Vincent Duluc in the French newspaper ‘L`Equipe’, “the culture of defeat”.
2) Will Messi return to Camp Nou?
He went to Paris SG without wanting to leave the Camp Nou. But he had to leave thinking that it was, at the same time, the most direct way to win the Champions League again. Two years later, Leo continues to be just as frustrated as he was in his final five years as a Barça player.
Since Berlin he has not kissed the orejona again. It was in June 2015. Since then, fall after fall, either with Barça or now with PSG, all the motivation of the Argentine star has been squeezed after winning the World Cup in Qatar, the title that reconciles him with himself and, of course, with all your country.
Xavi opens the doors of the Camp Nou for him, Laporta thinks of a tribute and Leo, meanwhile, does not reveal clues about his future
Messi ends contract in three months. He hasn’t said anything. The Parisian club wants to renew it. But he is silent. Joan Laporta would be delighted to return Messi to the Camp Nou because that way he would settle a personal debt that he has pending. He would no longer be the president who let Leo get away. It would then be the president who brought about the return of ’10’, with Xavi openly admitting that he would “fit” into his tactical model.
And Messi, meanwhile, remains silent about his future, aware, yes, that Paris turns out to be a more distant path to reach the Champions League every year. He, at the age of 35 and after reaching the world crown that he so much sought and needed in Qatar, has to choose whether to return to Barcelona, embark on a luxurious adventure in Saudi Arabia, just as if he were Cristiano Ronaldo, or go to Miami as planned. .
3) Was Mbappé fed up? Will Madrid insist again?
It was closer to the Bernabéu than ever this past summer, but, in the end, Kilyan Mbappé decided to stay at the Parque de los Príncipes. So that? To win the French League and fail, one more year, in Europe. He arrived in 2018, transformed into the second most expensive signing on the planet, only surpassed by Neymar, who left Barça to win the Champions League, but has not done so.
Little is little. Too little for one of the best forwards, who he sees his best moments go by without transcending in the best competition in the world.
“They have a great team, a great squad, they are made to win the Champions League,” said Mbappé, praising Bayern’s sports policy in what was, at the same time, a criticism of his club’s. “I said it at the beginning of the season during the first Champions League press conference that we were going to give our best. Our maximum, that’s all… It’s the truth. We are going to question ourselves and return to our day to day that it’s the League”, he said, assuming PSG’s inferiority complex.
His game in Munich traces the irregular profile of Mbappé, who leaves these round of 16 without scoring a single goal, receiving the same bad grade that Messi got from the newspaper ‘L’Equipe’. “A 3”. A sad three that punishes the footballer who ended the night with the captain’s armband, frustrated by his failure to appear.
“My future? I’m calm, I want to win the League and then we’ll see”
He was expected on a big night and he did not live up to who he is. And, above all, who is expected to be one day. Eliminated in the round of 16 (2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023), finalist (2020) and semifinalist (2021). That is the disappointing balance of Mbappé in the Champions League.
Mbappé must also decide if he remains in Paris at a club with no European history. No European future. “I’m calm, I want to win the League and then we’ll see”, declared the striker in Munich in perfect Spanish after another failure in the Champions League. Madrid can abandon the pain he felt in the summer when he was rejected by the player. He needs him now more than a few months ago after it was found that Benzema is not in the best version of him.
He is 24 years old and renewed until 2025, although the possibility remains open that MbappeTired of so much European fall, I left Paris in the summer.
4.- Galtier, another convicted technician
After the elimination in Munich, the question was inevitable: will Galtier continue? He bet PSG on a well-known coach in France guided by the advice of Luis Campos, who acted as sports director. With a name in the football of the hexagonal country, but without any weight in Europe.
Starting in March, the Parisian team has already been eliminated from the French Cup by Marseille a month ago and from the Champions League in the round of 16, a fatal tradition in recent years.
“I know the importance of the Champions League for PSG and I know there are great expectations,” acknowledged the French coach in Germany, regretting having “lost three central defenders” (Marquinhos, Kimpembe and Mukiele) at the key moment of the tie with Bayern.
“It is too early to talk about my future, it necessarily depends on my management and my president”
Emery He was not fired after Barça’s comeback with that unforgettable 6-1 win at the Camp Nou that he avoided the 4-0 conceded in the Parque de los Príncipes. Galtier has one more year on his contract (June 2024), although that is not a guarantee of anything. “It is too early to talk about my future, it necessarily depends on my management and my president,” Galtier acknowledged. “Obviously there’s disappointment, but I’m staying the course, still focused on the end of the season, with energy and determination.”
