turns it around Mauricio Pochettino even to those eighth finals of the Champions League in which the Paris Saint Germain He was about to beat Real Madrid. Almost as many as the world of football gives to the future of the current PSG coach, who is laconic in his first impulse. “I have one more year left on my contract.”, he answers, in an extensive interview with the program Sacred Cowsfrom Esport3.
“There are many rumours. I’ve been kicked out every week, but Paris Saint Germain stirs up this kind of thing. It is being a great experience. To get to a club like PSG you have to be a great coach, but after a year and a half I think I’m one of the best.”, affirms the Spanish-Argentinean, who adds: “In a locker room like the one we had, with so many great stars and figures, it has been a continuous learning for me”. “I am calm,” he insists.
“It is normal for these types of storms to be generated in a club whose goal is to win the Champions League. In the end, we have won the League, just like City”. And he refers to his European rival again when he admits: “I like Manchester Citybecause it has given Guardiola, Txiki (Begiristain) and Ferran (Soriano) the opportunity to build that adaptation time for the players. Giving peace of mind to the project we are going to be close to winning the Champions League, because we have already been”.
“PSG is desperate to win the Champions League. The objective is to win it and it is normal for storms to arise. We turned it around by winning the League, like City in England. With the expectations and the dressing room we have, it is continuous learning. step to eliminate Madrid, like Chelsea, City and Liverpool. We have won the same as Ancelotti, Blanc… Other coaches, but there is a lot of impatience in the club. I think we will find a way to understand each other so that players, coaching and board of directors we can all go together”, he added about Paris Saint-Germain.
“Madrid has that competitive gene that the shirt gives, it has generated that idea that everything is possible, that stage fright that I have heard so much from Jorge Valdano was revived”, he reflects, about those round of 16 and the Champions League finally conquered by the whites, who however they could not undertake the signing of Kylian Mbappé.
“the boy was right. Many things were taken for granted, but he always said that he had not made the decision. He did it last week, and he decided to stay”, assures Pochettino, who also talks about this long season in which the French attacker was so close to being a Real Madrid player: “I hate people who pretend to be victims, but the reality is that a player who has been in negotiations for a year , who does not have the peace of mind to be focused on what he should do, has to affect”.
Another Frenchman who could arrive in Paris is Ousmane Dembélé, on whom Mauricio Pochettino did not hesitate to speak out. “He is French, the situation is favorable, he can sign for any big club. He is a great player who has exploded this season, he has great quality and, due to his profile, PSG could be interested, but it does not mean that he is in the schedule,” he explained.
Messi and the World Cup he lacks
On another great PSG star, Lionel MessiPochettino sentence that his signing “was done in three days, believe me. It was incredible. There was no other team in the world with the managerial ability to do it so quickly.” His acclimatization to Paris has been slower, but the coach explains that “moving his whole family has not been easy, it is a different type of football, his teammates have also had to adapt to it… Everyone thought he would end up with the shirt From Barcelona. But For me it has been a dream, as an Argentine, as a fan of Newell’s and having suffered from the other side (as player and coach of Espanyol)”.
What also unites Pochettino and Messi is the Argentine national team, in which the ‘Flea’ has just scored five goals, last Sunday against Estonia in El Sadar (5-0), making the albiceleste an increasingly clear contender for the World Cup. “A victory like the one in the Copa América was needed. A spirit was conceived that has been evolving. So many games without defeat indicate that they are on the right track, and pThey can be a serious candidate for the World Cup. I’d love to. Having Messi with his maturity, it would be incredible if he won a World Cup with Argentina, that’s what he lacks”, Pochettino column.