At the Parc des Princes,
Does anyone still have any news of the famous pact concluded between the players of Paris Saint-Germain at the start of the season? But if, remember, it was at the end of last August, when the team rolled over everything that moved and the Galtier effect was at its peak. At the time, therefore, sure of its strength, the band at Galette had set itself the challenge of ending the season without the slightest defeat in the league. How funny people were in those days! Seven months later, after the new defeat conceded on Sunday evening against an Olympique Lyonnais who nevertheless has nothing of a thunderbolt of war, we can’t help laughing (as long as we are not a supporter of Paris Saint Germain).
And again, to see the reaction of the Virage Auteuil, which celebrated the 15th anniversary of the K-Soce Team by having a party from start to finish of the evening, almost without worrying about what was happening on the lawn, we end up saying to ourselves that we can very well have this club under our skin and make fun of the sinking in progress under our eyes. And that’s perhaps the worst thing, ultimately, to see a Parc des Princes indifferent to the shameful attitude of its players. There was a time not so long ago when such a copy would have been accompanied by a snarl of all the devils. Sunday, however, despite the club’s eighth defeat in 2023, no one had the desire or the courage to revolt against what is becoming increasingly difficult to call a team.
A lack of reaction that borders on indecency
After a start to the match where we were surprised to say “hey, funny that, they seem to want to play football tonight”, the Parisians turned off the light never to turn it on again. And Bradley Barcola’s opener on returning from the locker room then sounded like a legitimate punishment for players who sometimes seem to forget that if all work deserves pay, it also works the other way around. And that according to the rules of football, a match is not lost when the first goal is conceded. It is precisely this lack of reaction that surprised Christophe Galtier the most at the post-match press conference.
“What I see is that we are quickly resigned, he lamented. Before, we had this ability to overturn matches… We lacked character, personality, perhaps also pride. There is cold anger because of this resignation which came too quickly in this match, when we had time to overthrow it. He missed a lot of investment. “If the Marseillais for once had strong words, he who throughout recent months has always shown (too) great indulgence towards his executives – starting with the ghost of Leo Messi, still below of all Sunday evening – the real rant of the evening came from a player.
Unsurprisingly, it is Danilo Pereira, at the microphone of Prime Video: “What is missing at PSG? The responsibility. We don’t respect the organization, we don’t give it our all. Even at home, you don’t give what you should give, he said. We are in a difficult phase, but we have to get out of it. Our opponents are closing to six points. We have to wake up. The title ? No, he is not insured, we knew he was not insured because there are still a lot of games. Ligue 1 is a very very difficult, competitive championship. We have to get this championship. Change the mindset? Yes, but we have to change a lot of things. But that’s not for me to say. »
The end of the season of all dangers
The title, let’s get to it. With this new defeat, the second consecutive in Ligue 1, Paris is only six points ahead of Lens and OM, who had eleven not so long ago. In a snap, the advance mattress has become a yoga mat. “It’s our eighth defeat in 2023, it’s far too much. Certainly, we have points in advance, but game after game we burn our jokers, ”admitted Galtier in the auditorium of the Park. Therefore, what can he expect from his players in the near future, when a perilous trip to Nice eaglets is looming and the reception of Racing Club de Lens in stride at the Parc des Princes? “A champion’s reaction”, retorts Galette, who can objectively only count on the burst of pride of his stars not to sink definitively and lose everything at the end of the season.
“I have great players, players who have won a lot of titles in their career and I dare to hope that they are not jaded by titles. We must have a group unity, a reaction of pride to react quickly. I will talk about it with my players at the beginning of the week, make them understand that we must not believe that things will happen naturally. No, when you’re in that state, things don’t come like that. “From there to knowing if it will still be audible, he who has little chance of continuing the adventure beyond the month of May… Because as Laurent Blanc, a fine connoisseur of the Parisian house, rightly reminded us, “PSG’s problem is that when the number 1 objective is no longer accessible, it seems that the season no longer exists”.
“We feel it, we perceive it. The Champions League continues, everything is fine. The Champions League stops, everything stops, everything is over, the season is over, we are talking about next season, we are anticipating everything, continued Lolo White. It’s difficult to remobilize, to remobilize all the players for the objective of the championship. But Christophe will get there. The pride of the players takes over at some point. There is this somewhat delicate period and Paris is there. But it will come back. “Would he be ready to bet his stock of stirrers on it? We, in any case, we will not risk it. And if there is justice in this world, quite frankly, we are not far from thinking that other teams deserve a hundred times more to be crowned champions at the end of the season. Which ones? To the north, it was the Corons.