He was the first Parisian recruit of a transfer window that we could not guess so breathtaking, and will perhaps be the most important in the long term in the collective balance of PSG. Georginio Wijnaldum, whom Paris had been eyeing for a long time without being able to get his hands on it, expresses himself at length in The team before the first Champions League match in Bruges on Wednesday.
“I have qualities to project myself to the goal”
The Dutch midfielder explains in jargon that he could have chosen Barça if the negotiations had not dragged on for so long, confides that he was quickly convinced by the speech of Leonardo and Pochettino, the latter having already tried to recruit him in 2016 at Tottenham:
“They didn’t promise me so much that I was going to be a key player as they did explain how I was going to become, with my qualities, with my experience, an essential part of their project. This is the kind of conversation I had with Leonardo, the manager, and the president [Nasser Al-Khelaïfi] later. They told me I had time to think it over, but I replied immediately that I was okay with it. I knew it would be good for me. “
Asked to define his profile, the Dutch international sketches the portrait of the player who was missing at PSG, namely the “box to box” environment who projects himself and who is able to score, on occasion: “My point of view is that I have the qualities to project myself to the goal. In the national team, I scored a lot of goals (26 in 82 selections). I like to sneak behind the back of the opposing defense and suddenly find myself in a good position to score or serve a partner. I am also a player full of energy, I can attack, defend, repeat back and forth. Sometimes the game needs to be more static, and that’s difficult for me. “
“We have to become an incredible team”
Finally, the experienced midfielder, European champion with Liverpool, gives his recipe to go far in C1, and warns his teammates of the danger that may lie in wait: “I read statements from Ronaldo the Brazilian, where he explained that he played with the Galacticos at Real and that he never won the C1. It is not because we have such a workforce that we will automatically win the C1. Even with all these great players, we will have to train and behave as a team. We have incredible players, but we have to become an incredible team ”. Pochettino’s job, which seems to have taken the site by the right end.