No reservations with Mbappé

While waiting for Messi's arrival in Paris this Monday, PSG kicked off their Ligue 1 contest on Saturday with Mbappé in Pochettino's starting team. It was not reserved. The forward played most of the game (the coach replaced him in the 90th minute) and gave Icardi the assist of the goal that meant victory for his team. It was Kylian's first game after failing the penalty with which France said goodbye to the Eurocup and the Troyes fans gave a favorable ruling: timid whistles and most of the applause when his presence in the eleven was announced over the public address system. Neither Leonardo nor Al Khelaifi, who did not attend the game, heard him.

That double absence in a game as significant as a league premiere gave something to talk about in France. Some journalists specialized in PSG specified that the two heavyweights of the Parisian club canceled their trip to Troyes at the last moment. The cause? Accelerate the work to close the signing of Messi.

Secrecy which was joined by the subsequent silence of both Pochettino and Mbappé himself after the meeting. With the focus of the Parisian team and all of French football on Messi's deliberation about his next professional destination, too one looks askance at how the possible arrival of the ex-azulgrana may affect the immediate future of the French star. The goodbye of the Argentine gives a turn to the depressed general panorama of the European market (with the exception of the Premier) and the movements of PSG in particular. The signings of Ramos, Achraf, Wijnaldum and Donnarumma (all, except the Moroccan, free) completed a constellation of stars with little room for improvement.

PSG was already looking to the summer that is coming and the stranded renovation of Mbappé when the earthquake in Can Barça has blown up the planning in the offices of the Parque de los Príncipes and the handful of clubs that have the economic capacity to undertake an operation of the magnitude of Messi's signing. But everything has a limit. Signing the international albiceleste can compromise PSG in complying with the Financial Fair Play, no matter how wide the sleeve UEFA gives them due to the ravages of the pandemic and the position, alien to the project, that the Parisian entity adopted with the Super League. But it is not only an economic question. Also sporty. On Saturday evening Pochettino drew a team with Mbappé, Icardi and Draxler from headlines in attack. With Sarabia on the bench, Neymar and Di María were still missing. If Messi arrives, we will have to make room for him where there is almost no.

In all this context it is where the possibilities of Madrid increase to undertake the long-awaited signing of Mbappé. The white club sees a window to achieve it, as AS reported yesterday. Madrid awaits the resolution of the Messi case to find a more accessible interlocutor in PSG in its attempt to bring Mbappé to the Bernabéu as soon as possible. Until now in Paris they did not contemplate anything other than the continuity of the player, beyond even his contract in force until June 2022. The pressure is total. The president himself, Nasser Al Khelaifi, had taken the reins of the matter in person to the detriment of Leonardo, sports director. But the player, despite the insistence of the club, has flatly refused to enter into negotiations to extend the bond that binds him to PSG. Around there, Madrid sees its firm plan.

The collateral effects of the Messi case will affect Mbappé and his future. Madrid is still attentive to the outcome and a gesture from Paris. A domino effect, as in the simile of nails, a star brings out another star …