Laurent Blanc, during the famous matches at City in 2016. – SIPANY / SIPA
- Manchester City and PSG meet five years after a quarter-final which saw the Citizens eliminate the band of Laurent Blanc (2-2, 1-0).
- The Parisian coach at the time had used a new tactical scheme in 3-5-2 which had (in part) caused his ouster in the following weeks.
- This choice continues to be criticized for the President five years later, while the elimination can be explained by other reasons with hindsight.
From Qatar, where he manages the destiny of Al-Rayyan in the most complete anonymity, Laurent Blanc will surely find the time to land on his sofa in Arabian Oryx hair in front of PSG-City. Perhaps with a little cognac in hand, if he has managed to import alcohol under the nose of the local customs, and a touch of bitterness in his wandering thoughts. “But why did I try a crappy 3-5-2 that ruined my coaching career at the highest level when I was King of Paris? “
We are exaggerating a bit, since golf is also surely for something in these many interviews that never followed up, but remember this quarter-final return in 2016 (2-2 on the way to the Park). Remember those damning comments, those media taunts, those immediate jeers, for daring to deviate from his 4-3-3 of your life, a Matuidi and in bed? The meal tour leads us directly to this punchline from Geoffrey Garétier, our colleague from Canal: “If we talk about tactics, this 3-5-2 is the biggest fiasco in the history of French football”. Just that.
Ourselves, at 20 minutes, we had published a hot article titled “Laurent Blanc, you really deserved to be fired” from our special correspondent in London, before retoking it the next day, while the spirits took a little tour in the cooler. Too late, Laurent Blanc’s famous 3-5-2 was associated for life with City’s debacle. Five years later, justice has had time to do its job. Does she confirm on appeal the radiation of Lolo White for life from a sideline that matters? 20 minutes recalls the facts
»Already, was it really a 3-5-2?
It’s a detail in the argument, but you might as well be precise. Paris evolved that night at kick-off in a sort of 3-4-3 hybrid with a Di Maria more in support of the Cavani-Ibra duo than in the position of third torchbearer like at Real Madrid. We note the presence of Serge Aurier as the right stopper, who will make a lot of talk after the fact (we will come back to this).
Why did Blanc make this choice?
Because Verratti is injured, for a change, and Matuidi is suspended, as well as David Luiz, whom White had upped a notch the year before against Chelsea on a lean day in the middle. That evening only Rabiot and Motta remained in training environments on paper (and Stambouli, but hey …)
“People do not remember why he had changed the system that day, recently regretted the former deputy Jean-Louis Gasset in The team. Out of 200 matches, Laurent had to coach 199 matches in 4-3-3 and it is said that he changed the system for that match as if a whim had come to him during the night… It was the workforce that made that we no longer had backgrounds… ”
Had he never tested it in training?
While the index of this iconoclastic composition leaked the day before the match, Parisian supporters are reassured by saying that the staff has done the job in training to put the players in match condition. A thesis dismantled by Zlatan from the whistle: “We implemented a tactic that we had never tested. […] We played better when we got back to our usual tactics ”.
Laurent Blanc may try to put out the fire two days later – “In competition, they never tested it, but they worked on it on Sunday morning. [à l’arrêt, avec explications du coach à la clé]. I was convinced that this system could make us stronger defensively ”- the story of an improvisation that goes wrong has prevailed everywhere.
How long did it last? 43 minutes
White always: “We changed system in the 44th minute, and we were still 0-0”. Motta let go by his spare wheel, the staff sends Lucas to the fire and goes back to the usual configuration of PSG at the time with Marquinhos as sentry. For an improvement close to nothing. Two goals refused precisely, and an increasingly great impotence until the sublime strike of De Bruyne. Paris is therefore eliminated in 4-3-3 and will wait four years before reviewing the quarter-finals of C1, with the tragedies that we know
A quick phone call to Geoffroy Garétier for fun. Regrets for having released such a formula on the air? “You know how it works, he smiles, sometimes you want to do not punchline at least as much as to decipher things in depth”. He retracts in part: “Today I would say that Laurent messed up, but for other reasons”. On the 3-5-2, of course, “because Blanc and his steadfast 4-3-3 was not a coach who embodied tactical flexibility like a Klopp or a Guardiola, who instill in their players multiple systems to change ren during the match ”. But above all, on the Aurier case.
Does the Periscope case bring back memories for everyone? The Ivorian side who pays his teammates and his coach on the rézo – “he is guez” – before being suspended and then absolved by Nasser Al-Khelaïfi in person, present in the stands in Poissy for his resumption in CFA. “A crime against the locker room that we did not condemn to the end, regrets Jérôme, a longtime Parisian fan. Either we sanctioned him financially, or sportingly, but then we reinstate him after a month without playing for the most important match of the season while disavowing the coach? “
The Aurier affair, much more weighty than the 3-5-2
Because this good Serge Aurier is established from the first leg against City, during which he obviously struggles to exist. His performance partly explains the draw conceded by PSG, while the qualifier should have been folded in half an hour if Zlatan had not decided to scuttle a penalty and a full face-to-face. The Swede could have or should have been designated as the main culprit of the elimination and guillotined on the strike, but here it is, the 3-5-2 has swept everything into memory.
“Playing 3-5-2 at City doesn’t seem like an aberration to me at the start,” Jérôme remembers. But the match begins, and we realize that the players have not worked enough on this device because we are taking the tide. At the time, we don’t like it or we don’t like it, but there is a Laurent Blanc paw, a licked leu, repetitions of passes, and there everything crumbles. I still blame him because I said to myself that White had wanted to try this blow to be able to say “all the glory is for me” in the event of qualification “.
A crappy shot, therefore, with an Aurier even more cataclysmic than on the way there. First a bad pass that sends Aguero alone on goal (he will miss the penalty), and another that will result in the injury of Motta, therefore the return to the usual device. Did White have a choice, after the scene of great forgiveness played by NAK? “He must never make him play even if he is under pressure because he feels that something is escaping him”, Judge Garétier, who makes the connection with the 4-5-1 taken out of the hat by Laurent Blanc against the ‘Spain at Euro 2012. A renunciation of its principles on D-Day and a lack of authority which have definitively condemned the former coach in people’s minds. Starting with his? It is being played on a sofa in Doha, and will know nothing about it.