Parisian supporters knew full well that Javier Pastore (34) would not last forever. When he left the club in 2018, when he only played intermittently, because of his physique but also after the arrivals of Neymar and Mbappé had put him in the background, their emotion had makes you feel. Sunday evening, those who were watching “Sunday Evening Football” on Prime Video had to relive this emotion.
Interviewed in the Sunday show of the Ligue 1 broadcaster, the former number 27 of PSG, the first major recruit of the QSI era who arrived for 42 million euros in the summer of 2011, confided that his physical problems were going undoubtedly signal the end of his professional career. “I still have to have hip surgery,” he explains. Honestly, I do it to have a better life and to no longer have pain. » The former Argentinian international (29 caps, 2 goals) explains that he has “pain every day, not only when I play football but also in normal life. »
The playmaker will, he says, make a point this summer, once he recovers from this surgery. He will then be 35, which he celebrates on June 20, and will have spent a year without touching a ball, having left Qatar SC last July after only six months in the emirate. “This summer, I’m going to have to look at how I feel, if I can continue playing or not,” he explains. I will make a decision, for the moment I am on stand-by (…) It would be a miracle if I resumed. My head is already a little gone, but you never know. »
There are “similarities” with Ousmane Dembélé
Among the other subjects discussed during the interview, there is also this style of play that Javier Pastore embodied, the elegance, the unpredictability, which tends to disappear in football today but which he manages to find again at PSG at a certain… Ousmane Dembélé. “He’s a player who is pleasant to watch, he always does something different, he moves in a different way. He’s skinny too, like me (laughs), I find similarities, even if he’s much faster than me. »
“It’s exceptional to have this relationship with the supporters, this feeling of never having left,” he expresses again, looking back on his departure and his relationship with the city and the Paris club. “This departure was my choice. With the club, we talked about staying a long time, finishing my career at PSG. But with the arrivals of Neymar, Mbappé, there was already Di Maria, Cavani… I knew I couldn’t have as many minutes as I wanted. »
