In their desperation to find a coach to accept Paris Saint-Germain’s once-coveted position, the club’s owners, the princes who control Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, exhaust the long list of candidates they offer with rejections and Be silent. What’s already pretended across Europe as an impossible mission: glory on the bench at France’s richest club. After Julian Nagelsmann said last Friday that he was not sure about the project, the catalog is reduced to two names: Luis Enrique and Thiago Motta.
The apparent skepticism of Nagelsmann, who was very pessimistic after learning that Kylian Mbappé would not renew his contract and could move this summer, forced the club’s management to get in touch with the former Spanish manager. According to the newspaper L’Équipe, talks with Luis Enrique were very advanced yesterday Sunday. This version was not confirmed by the manager’s agent, Iván de la Peña. PSG sources warned that the remaining pairing as they wait for Nagelsmann to dodge is causing major concern among the front runners. On the one hand, they point out, Luis Enrique fails to convince sporting director Luis Campos. Campos believes Motta, who has done an excellent job at Bologna in Serie A this season, has a more suitable profile. On the other hand, President Nasser al-Khelaifi fears that Motta lacks the media credibility and prestige that Champions League winner Luis Enrique displays. The Qatari President does not want to take on the responsibility demanded of those in charge when a technician with no glory is at the forefront of failure. Al-Khelaifi fears stumbling again if he relies on a coach without a stellar record, as was the case with the late Christophe Galtier.
A few days ago, Paris Saint-Germain hired an intermediary to investigate Antonio Conte. The Italian coach with the highest reputation on the market after Spalletti and Carlo Ancelotti received the unofficial expression of interest and replied with silence. “He was distracted because he wasn’t being contemptuous,” explained a person close to the French club.
PSG are in the midst of their worst identity crisis since being bought by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund in 2011. Project Neymar’s failure – seriously injured – was followed by Project Messi’s failure – fired with catcalls – the announcement that Kylian Mbappé wanted his contract im Do not extend the year 2024, the source of illusions has dried up completely. Conte’s reaction mirrors the reaction of all coaches with a certain track record who have been offered a job by the club. The list includes those that have appeared available in recent months: Zidane, Pochettino, Spalletti, Nagelsmann, Gallardo, Conceiçao… The last is Luis Enrique and Motta the penultimate.
The disinterest or distrust that PSG arouses in the most qualified technicians is a sign of exhaustion. If Neymar and Mbappé’s signing became official in the summer of 2017 with the pomp typical of the climax of an epic, Messi’s signing in 2021 closed the tiara. The management, ultimately headed by the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, led players and the media to believe that success was linked to media impact. However, the great signings were not enough to win the Champions League, the emir’s ultimate goal. Under the mantle of Neymar and his toady entourage, a culture developed that was more folkloric than military and unimaginable in the face of fierce competition. Neither Emery, nor Tuchel, nor Pochettino, let alone Galtier, have managed to overcome the inertia of dispersion and individualism that permeate the most heterodox dressing rooms of Europe’s great football institutions. When Mbappé demanded a change of course in exchange for his extension until 2024, the reform policy had little formal significance.
Neymar, in danger
Of the six editions that the team played in the Champions League, they were eliminated in four cases in the round of 16, in 2021 they reached the semi-finals and in 2020 they lost the final to Bayern after a series of qualifiers without an organized audience Portugal, as the tournament des summer, in the middle of a pandemic. Now PSG officials admit that the confusion inside the house is unusual amid ever-denied rumors that Qatar wants to transfer the property.
Mbappé’s disappointment is only comparable to the void Neymar leaves in the team’s football heritage. A torn ligament in his right ankle has left the tenth Brazilian in a deadlock from which doctors don’t know if he will emerge unscathed. There are many doubts after the player’s operation in Doha. He has a contract until 2025 and demands more than 40 million net per year for all concepts. But at the age of 31, his ailing body is the metaphor of the club that stood at his feet.
Jose Mourinho, Paris is on fire
Diego Torres
When one of President Nasser al-Khelaifi’s most respected advisers heard that the Paris Saint-Germain owners were evaluating the possibilities arising from the signing of José Mourinho for the team’s first bench, he posed the following question in a conversation months ago: “Remember the fire at Notre Dame?”
The fire that severely damaged Paris Cathedral on May 15, 2019 served as a comparison for this expert as he attempted to warn Al-Khelaifi of the dangers of introducing a man like Mourinho into a dressing room as volatile and capricious as the Parisian.
It was Luis Campos, sporting director of PSG, who insisted on signing the current Roma coach in exchange for compensation to the Italian club. Campos assured – and continues to defend – that Mourinho is the right man to give PSG the competitive character it never managed to develop under Qatari ownership. Amid an identity crisis and owners’ heartache at not being able to find coaches willing to take charge of an increasingly unpredictable institution, the possibility of signing a star like Mourinho in music acted as a magical solution . Only a few old advisers opposed it, but with enough weight to contain the most intriguing impulses.
In France, Campos’ connections to Jorge Mendes, Mourinho’s agent, are known. Neither Portuguese has denied the existence of a relationship, although both deny they share identical business goals. The conflict of interest has not been proven but hangs like a storm cloud over the club, as Radio Monte-Carlo – the best-informed media outlet in French football – revealed in its broadcast on Saturday. “Mou’s signing would be the finishing touch to this delirium,” the old agent warned a club employee.
Al-Khelaifi was inhibited. The final lost by Mourinho’s Roma to Sevilla didn’t help Campos’ cause. But time flies and PSG still haven’t found a coach for next season. As long as Campos stays at the club, Mourinho will remain in the chamber.
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