Foot – Market – PSG
PSG: Another revolution in the Qatar project?
Published on June 26, 2024 at 1:00 p.m.
Graduated from Journalism School in Paris. Specializing in football, and more particularly on the transfer window. Fan of PSG and Stade Français.
Since the takeover of PSG by Qatar in 2011, the project has regularly been relaunched with several major changes in the goalkeeper hierarchy. And this could be the case again this summer with the recruitment of Russian international Matvey Safonov, who is already showing his desire to dislodge Gianluigi Donnarumma from his starting status.
The PSG completed its first reinforcement of the summer by bringing in the goalkeeper Matthew Safonov (25 years old) from Krasnodar, for €20M. A profile that is still relatively unknown in France, and yet the Russian international (14 caps) already promises to shake up the hierarchy with Gianluigi Donnarumma. In an interview given Tuesday to Russian media Nobel, Safonov made a clear announcement on this subject and is sportingly threatening the Italian goalkeeper of PSG.
“I’m going to fight with Donnarumma”
« No one ever told me I was number two. I come to Paris to fight. I want to play football. Even if they had told me I was number two, I wouldn’t have listened to them. It’s up to me to give the best of myself. I don’t see myself as a number two. I don’t want to be a replacement. If they put me as number two, it won’t be easy for number one… I’m going to fight with him constantly. I have never lost a competition. I have always been the number one goalkeeper. In Krasnodar I have always been number one. In the national team, I was a substitute in the first match, then I became the number one goalkeeper. I have always been number one until now. I can’t be a replacement. (…) I am Russian and no one knows me here in France. Maybe they don’t plan to put me number one right away yet. But I believe in it », clearly indicates the new recruit of the PSG.
New upheaval among the goalkeepers?
It must be said that since the beginning of the QSI era in PSGthe hierarchy of goalkeepers has already been shaken up several times. From the first of the Qatar at the head of the club, in 2011, Salvatore Sirigu had taken advantage of the long-term injury of Nicolas Shower to take the starting place that was promised to him. Four years later, the PSG had decided to bet on Kevin Trappand the German goalkeeper had managed to establish himself as number one and push Sirigu on the sidelines. A status that he will only retain for a short time since in 2016, a work-study program was put in place at PSG in between Trapp et Areola, just back from loan. An alternation which will then continue with Gianluigi Buffonand the management then managed to strike a major blow by recruiting Keylor Navas from the Real Madrid in the summer of 2019. The Costa Rican remained number one for two seasons before seeing a certain Gianluigi Donnarumma. The two men competed for a year, before the Italian finally took the upper hand. It now remains to be seen whether the hierarchy will be further disrupted by Safonov for the continuation of the QSI project.
