Champions League: This Luis Enrique PSG version finally becomes a real team

ThoseChampions League –This less bling-bling PSG has finally become a Real team

This Wednesday, Parisians want to go to the final after the 1-0 success in Arsenal. Chronicle of a return in grace for a club and Luis Enrique, rid of Mbappé.

Posted today at 11:36 a.m.

Irony of fate: Kylian Mbappé Leaving PSG last summer to win the Champions League with Real Madrid and he finds himself in front of his television, eliminated in the quarter-finals, to see his former club at the gates of the final this Wednesday evening, against an Arsenal beaten 1-0 in England.

Ironically fate: Luis Enrique, the coach so long decried for the intransigence of his choices, sees today everyone greeting his work to say all the relevance.

Irony of fate: the PSG Long wanted to buy sporting credibility with its billions, he now obtains it only, rid of the Neymar, Messi, Mbappé and other Beckham or Ibrahimovic.

All this does not say that the Parisians will qualify for the final this Wednesday evening or that they will then win, for the first time in their history, the Champions Leaguethe ultimate dream of President Nasser Al-Khelaïfi and Qatari investors. But there is a discourse that is essential between myth and reality.

The irony of fate is undoubtedly good back, it sheds light on a trajectory without shedding light on all gray areas. Subscribe to it without height is to take the story by observing it by the little end of the Lorgnette.

In a natural reflex, favored through confirmation, we should accommodate a simple, even simplistic course. Luis Enrique, released like the whole team of the bulky presence of Kylian Mbappé, was able to work serenely in the construction of a real collective and, this season, after adjustments during the first months, PSG is finally a football team and more the sum of unmanageable divas.

Easy of the shortcut, everything is more complex and, to deeply decipher the dynamics, we turn to Vincent Duluc. The pen of “the team” has a clear look at PSG.

The Kylian Mbappé case

Without Mbappé, PSG would therefore finally be a team. Without him, this team plays better. Violence of the paradox: Last season, Mbappé is 45 goals scored for his own, all competitions combined (including 27 in Ligue 1 and 8 in the Champions League).

“I do not believe in theory that Mbappé’s departure explains everything,” explains Vincent Duluc. But it is true that the relationship between Nasser al-Khelaïfi and Kylian Mbappé was heavy, around These money affairspressures, around this departure in the club where the president of PSG did not want him to leave. ”

And on the ground, beyond this gravity coming from behind the scenes? “On the ground, Mbappé did not defend, it’s true,” says Duluc. So maybe the group is better organizing to run more without him. Because there is no longer the one who could be seen as a flank and therefore everyone naturally accepts efforts. But perhaps also because there is no longer the possibility of using Mbappé and its ability to score a lot of goals, since it is no longer there. ”

Luis Enrique, from zero to heroes?

Since the summer of 2023 and his arrival at the head of PSG, Luis Enrique is an uncompromising coach. An iron hand, without velvet glove. And a deleterious climate had settled around him, notably with the specialized French press and the Parisian media.

“I would not use the deleterious word,” corrects Vincent Duluc. But Luis Enrique is very dogmatic and also in bad faith. There was a long gap between the story he told and what was observed on the ground. There have also been aberrations. Like when, in February of last year, he said he wanted to prepare for the future, starting by sometimes depriving himself of Mbappé, when there is a semi-final of the Champions League to consider, which will be lost.»

However, today, he is this coach whose stubbornness and the accuracy of work, especially to build a collective. Really?

“Enrique has always wanted to impose a collective line,” continues Duluc. He said he wanted to precisely replace Mbappé’s goals with the collective. Without real scorer. All of this wandered until November and December, before this force was essential. But he managed with some of his principles, to achieve his ends. For example, Dembélé becomes a real scorer. Nuno Mendes is released so that it is more offensive, with one of the three circles which compensates between the two centrals. But even if she was a little twisted by Luis Enrique to go in the sense of what he told, the story gives her today, it must be recognized. ”

Credible PSG, as a team

The last point is not the least curious. This PSG would therefore now be, regardless of its qualification or not in the final this Wednesday evening, or even an extraordinary consecration which would exist or not in Munich then, on May 31, become something else: a real club.

A credible entity as such and as a team. No longer just the toy of Qatari investors (the QSI investment fund which bought the club in 2011), a club piloted with billions invested since their arrival, as if it were enough to buy the best players for a team to be born.

“There is a bit of that,” said Vincent Duluc. PSG wanted to be a global brand, and it is. In this regard, it is a success. But he wants to become a team. And that’s what seems to happen now. The immense stars are no longer there, apart from Dembélé perhaps, that’s right. But frankly, the payroll is always enormous with regard to other Ligue 1 clubs. This remains a reality. And then, if we count what was invested in 2023 and 2024, PSG is nearly 750 million euros in transfers. ” In other words: it’s less bling-bling, but always colossal.

By the grace of a route that draws something new, more constructed, finally more coherent, Paris Saint-Germain of this season is drawing a path. How far? First element of response this Wednesday evening. For a long time? You will have to see. Behind the certainties that have imposed themselves, less bling-bling therefore, the temptation to fall back into the excesses of yesterday.

Daniel Visentini is a journalist for the Geneva gallery, 24 hours and in the morning on Sunday. For seven years he was the head of the Sports section of the Genève Tribune. He closely follows football news, including that of Servette FC and the Swiss team.More info

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