“We played very well, our plan worked” (spoiler, not Pochettino’s)

At the Parc des Princes,

A fun little game to start. We have so much the impression of writing the same thing on the PSG, since the time, that we secretly happen to dream of a Ctrl C + Ctrl V to go to bed faster. Well, imagine that it works. Instead, read this early account of a happy draw against Napoli in the fall of 2018, an opponent in the same waters as Leipzig.

Starting postulate of this paper on which we will have to agree, otherwise there is no point in pushing the reading further. PSG were carried around by Napoli all over the almafitan side, apart from a vaguely correct start and a nice reaction of a quarter of an hour at the start of the second half. As he was lugged by Liverpool to Anfield, and by Lyon to the Park not so long ago, at least for an hour. A nice 3/3 in lugging,

We will change three words to see, you will laugh:

Starting postulate of this paper on which we will have to agree, otherwise there is no point in pushing the reading further. PSG got carried away by Leipzig throughout the GDR, apart from a vaguely correct start and a nice reaction of a quarter of an hour finally second half. As he got lugged by Rennes at Roazhon Park, and through Lyon to the Parc not so long ago, at least for an hour. A nice 3/3 in lugging.

Come on, another sample for the road:

  • The attackers do not give a damn not in defense.
  • Verratti and Rabiot are cut off from the world in the middle on their raft of the Medusa
  • The game plan actually boils down to finding Neymar in Lebron James mode in the middle. Ten seconds on the clock, five guys across the way, and do your best to get us out of the mess.

Even small exercise, it is striking:

  • Attackers don’t give a damn about defense,
  • Verratti, Gueye and Herrera are cut off from the world
  • The game project really boils down to finding Kylian Mbappé in Lebron James mode in attack.

Obviously, we lather inexpensively. But it is amazing to see that the players pass and that the staffs follow one another without being able to detect the slightest lasting progress in the collective identity of PSG. In his time, Tuchel often made explicit the concept of “structure”. So after Napoli: “We said at half-time that we had lost our structure, we didn’t play together for half an hour. If you don’t play with a compact structure, you can’t play with intensity. When the spaces are too big, you cannot play with intensity. It is essential to close the spaces, it is our challenge ”

Pochettino’s justifications, when stripped of superfluous layers of varnish – “great players like Kylian and Leo are there to provide solutions when games are complicated” – are not so distant, three years later:

“We started well but it’s true that they put a lot of pressure on Marco [Verratti] and that we confused the positions in midfield a bit. This made the pressing of Leipzig possible. We knew their energy and their aggressiveness, and we couldn’t break their pressure line. Our midfielders had possession of the ball, but too low compared to what we had expected ”.

Ander Herrera, directly concerned on this point:

“After 20-25 minutes, we lost some balls which brought them into the game. We need to improve. We have to maintain our level at the start of the match. We lost some balls that we should not lose because it gave courage to the opponent. We must master for 90 minutes, but we take the path ”.

That remains to be seen, frankly. Pochettino arrived almost a year ago, and he still serves us the same soup, that of a team “under construction, which needs time”. The day before, he mentioned City and the permanence of Guardiola on the bench, “six years in total”, as a wishful thinking: if he already holds half in Paris, it will be a small feat, given the ambient pressure and Doha practices. At least he’s trying to defend his steak a little better lately, like when he explained that he brought Wijnaldum in and ordered Draxler to step back to “fix the Leipzig block inside” the game in the last quarter of an hour, when Paris took over.

Leipzig coach annoyed

“We may have deserved this defeat at that time” judged the other side Jesse Marsch, the American coach of Red Bull (finally Leipzig), no more convinced than that. “Our plan worked, we played very well. It’s Laimer’s best game, Orban was good, Mukiele too, Nkunku was the best player on the pitch with Messi and Mbappé ”. And yet, it is Paris that has picked up the bet. See you in two weeks for a new copy and paste, in the field and in our papers?


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