Mauricio Pochettino has fallen on his feet at Paris Saint-Germain. With just a few days to go until the first month is in charge of the Parisian team, the Argentine can already say that he is still undefeated and that he has won a title against Olympique de Marseille, a great rival of those in the capital.
The balance in these first bars is positive, although his first great touchstone will be in just over two weeks (February 16) when he will travel to Barcelona for the first leg of the Champions League against Barça, which he joins a rivalry more than special as a legend perica. Also to his new 'old' club, with which he has generated a recent duel on the green and outside of it with Neymar Jr as the main protagonist.
To arrive at the tone of this long-awaited confrontation, from France they assure that Pochettino has revolutionized the Camp des Loges with different methods than Tuchel, but also substantially altering the workload. “The warm-up is very complete with Pochettino. It is equivalent to training with Tuchel. They work”, sources from the Parisian team assure the newspaper L'Equipe.
“Neymar and Mbappé did what they wanted”
This quote from a source from the Parisian team to L'Equipe was one of the main problems that Tuchel had and that Pochettino has already addressed. First, with the schedule. The afternoon training sessions, a request from the players to sleep in the morning, are over. Now, they train at 11 and are scheduled at 9:30 with the possibility of having breakfast if they want at the club's facilities.
From 11, two hours of intense work begin. According to this newspaper, not a few players end up with fatigue. With one game a week, the Argentine prepares them so that their physical endurance in order to perform with note in the European qualifiers while maintaining the pulse for the League. His son Sebastiano, who has already worked with him to fine-tune the physical form of the Tottenham Hotspur squad, is in charge of this task.
They have to work on the physical and also on the tactical. Specifically, in defense. According to L'Equipe, with Tuchel, Neymar used to play the games only in attack, changing teams and now, they have won seriously. The Brazilian no longer changes teams and both he and Mbappé, who, according to what they say in this newspaper lately, did little field and more gym work, are being quite demanded by the coach to make an effort in defense. For these two, the privileges are over.
Mauricio is quite interventionist and likes to carry the weight of training, which other trainers decide to leave more in charge of their staff. From the green, he presses, demands and also takes the opportunity to chat and know the feelings of each player to manage his team in the best way. For now, he prepares his engines for the decisive stretch of the season. According L'Equipe, recent victories have given credit to the Argentine's method of convincing his players that this is the way to go, one in which even Neymar and Mbappé will have to collide and go to the mud to win.