Seen and read about PSG in the hex press this Tuesday, August 16. The Neymar-Mbappé relationship and its evolution, the return of Antero Henrique and the new direction…
The Parisian reveals in its edition of the day that the sports management of PSG met Neymar and Mbappé and wanted to “quickly move on and not spoil the promises of dawn”. The two players were therefore reunited this Sunday after training at the Camp des Loges in the company of Luis Campos and their trainer Christophe Galtier, and wanted to come back to the incident the day before. The local daily specifies that from Saturday evening “the locker room managers”, including Sergio Ramos, went to discuss with the two players to try to lower the tension. The locker room is aware that the start of the season is sportingly idyllic. The next day, the bosses of the sports sector, Campos and Galtier, therefore wanted to show the authority of the hierarchy.
The PSG sports adviser “reminds the two attackers that their behavior should at no time harm the performance of the team and that dirty laundry, if there should be any, should be washed with the family and not on the field. , in front of the cameras” writes The Parisian. The purpose of this meeting was to defuse this incident, “which seems to have worked. Neymar admitted to having “confused his status as number 2 shooter and the second penalty awarded in the same match” according to journalist Dominique Sévérac. At the end of this interview, the two players would have “admitted that the incident was closed, with a locker room that expects them to act in solidarity if not to be complicit. »
The Parisian takes stock of the development of the relationship between Kylian Mbappé and Neymar since their arrival at PSG in 2017. The daily explains that the whole club and relatives are calming things down: “We’re going to settle this”; “Ordinary episode”; “We exaggerate everything because it’s Paris”; “Let’s not start creating problems in August”, etc. Yet the two players have apparently “never been so far apart.” This friendship would have “crumbled over the months, without there being a culprit” due to multiple disagreements, on and off the field. When they arrived at PSG, the beginning of their relationship was based on benevolence and altruism, on the ground, the first months are considered “perfect”.
In 2020, the two players “pull in the same direction” for the Final 8 of the Champions League, which they will lose in the final, but the 2020-2021 season “marks a turning point. In private, the Frenchman is less tolerant of the Brazilian’s deviations. When one considers himself irreproachable, the other highlights his need for decompression. Mbappé’s ambitions, legitimate in terms of his performance, concerning his place at the club are growing. He is the best player on this team, demonstrates it and wants to be treated as such” describes Le Parisien. In the summer of 2021, his weariness grows and the French international asks for his departure to Real Madrid… which he will not get. In response, PSG will carry out an XXL transfer window. Between Neymar who finds Messi and Mbappé who is close to Hakimi, the two stars only rub shoulders very little outside the field.
The Team focuses on the organization chart of PSG with one in particular on the return of Antro Henrique. Three years after leaving PSG, the Portuguese returns as an unexpected comeback thanks to the restructuring of the off-season which got the better of the Brazilian’s fate. Since March, the former manager of FC Porto has been officially the sports director of the Qatar Football League. “Henrique never left the landscape in Doha. Close to the decision-makers, with whom he was already working before his first visit to Paris (2017-2019), he always maintained contact and remained appreciated by the Emir’s inner circle. Over the past three years, he has thus happened to be consulted on strategic questions or to streamline files (Danilo Pereira, Nuno Mendes), in parallel with other freelance positions for the Portuguese Federation, for example” writes The Team.
Following Leonardo’s departure, the Parisian shareholder gave the Parisian manager the task of parting with many undesirables: “A hell of a job, given that the club has put some fifteen elements on the market.” Antero Henrique is active to separate from players like Gueye, Paredes, Kehrer, Kurzawa.
He is also on the front line for transfers, where he intervenes in one way or another in all cases, including those of women (the extension of Marie-Antoinette Katoto) or young people (he is the one who signed Ayman Kari’s first pro contract). The former FC Porto decision-maker is also working “on the project of signing partnerships with satellite clubs, in order to be able to offer a favorable ground for the development of the neo-pros of the house.”
The Team reveals the organization of PSG during this transfer window is done with three men who took control and shared the functions. First the president, Nasser al-Khelaïfi, then the sports adviser, Luis Campos, and the last, without an official label but with a mandate from PSG, Antero Henrique.
Since the beginning of the transfer window, “it is the Portuguese leader who leads the transfer negotiations, purchases and sales, with the other clubs. The distribution of roles is clear: Campos, after discussing with Christophe Galtier, draws up a list of players he wishes to recruit, with an order of priority; Henrique is in charge of establishing contact with the clubs concerned and carrying out the negotiations” writes The Team. This process is also the case for sales where Luis Camps provides him with the names of players under contract on whom the staff no longer counts and it is his responsibility to find them a way out.
Campos was quick to get to work and had quickly contacted Vitinha’s and Hugo Ekitike’s agents to express his interest and tell them that these were his priorities in their positions. He is responsible for convincing his targets that their sporting interest lies in Paris and nowhere else. To the former Reims striker, for example, he guaranteed that a new, more French-speaking PSG would see the light of day and that he intended to make room for the best young French and Ligue 1 players.
“Once the fish is hooked,” Campos sends the file to Henrique, who then takes care of all the contractual dimension and the negotiation of transfer compensation, accompanied by Grégory Durand, director of legal affairs for the club.
If Nasser al-Kehlaifi could have been very interventionist between 2016 and 2018 during the various transfer windows, president of PSG has recovered a certain sporting authority this year. He validated, of course, the list of players that Campos and Galtier wanted to recruit but also that of the undesirables. The Parisian president had also taken advantage of his proximity to Pini Zahavi to make a quick phone call to Robert Lewandowski before he joined Barcelona. It could still be put to use soon. For example “Paris has not given up on recruiting Slovenian international defender from Inter Milan Milan Skriniar. Campos has reached an agreement with the player and his agent, Henrique has multiplied the contacts with Inter but the file is no longer progressing. There are fifteen days left for the new triumvirate to find a solution” concludes The Team.