Deprived of the Champions League due to a poorly negotiated play-off against Juventus Turin (1-3, 1-2) and beaten during the D1 shock in Lyon on November 3 (1-0), the Paris women’s team Saint-Germain got off to a particularly bad start to its season. The star striker of Les Bleues and PSG Marie-Antoinette Katoto returned this Thursday to the current difficulties of the eternal runner-up of OL. And especially on the tensions which seem to surround the Parisian locker room since the arrival this summer of Fabrice Abriel on the sidelines.
“It’s heavy, the atmosphere is heavy, we have to burst the abscess and say things to ourselves,” recalls the French international, who distinguished herself during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games by scoring five goals. The season got off to a very bad start and with misunderstandings during this transfer window. » The 26-year-old striker refers in particular to the departure to Lyon of last season’s best D1 player Tabitha Chawinga, a year after the already very damaging departure of Kadidiatou Diani to the eight-time European champion.
“We have to accept certain departures and move forward”
Likewise, Sandy Baltimore and Oriane Jean-François left PSG to join Chelsea, while goalkeeper Constance Picaud signed for Fleury. Only defender Griedge Mbock and English goalkeeper Mary Earps were choice recruits for the capital club.
“We have to accept certain departures and move forward. We cannot stay in this in-between: either we are all together and we go to war together, or we continue to cry and we will have a very long season,” insists Marie-Antoinette Katoto.
“My decision is already made and it will not change”
This briefly returned to the tensions between Fabrice Abriel and Grace Geyoro, deprived of the captaincy and excluded from the group on Saturday against Dijon (6-1): “What happens between them, that does not concern me”. Between the coach and “MAK”, “that hasn’t changed”, she assures. “I’m here to train and play. He is a good coach who knows football well, he is a former professional player, he knows what he wants to implement, he knows what he is doing. » Wanting to be positive despite the “difficult” start to the season, Katoto continues: “We were able to bounce back well [2e à un point du leader lyonnais]I am very happy and proud because it was really not easy to get back on track after this kind of failure which happened very early.”
Our file on Marie-Antoinette Katoto
A rebound that could encourage her to continue the adventure at PSG, where she reaches the end of her contract next summer? “My decision has already been made and it will not change,” she slips on the subject, specifying that there are no negotiations underway between the Parisian management and her for a possible extension. PSG supporters can therefore already prepare to see another major player leave the club in a few months.
