It will soon be three years since Thomas Tuchel left PSG. At odds with Leonardo, the sporting director at the time, the German coach was dismissed on December 23 to make way a few days later for Mauricio Pochettino. Since then, he has enjoyed Champions League success with Chelsea, followed by dismissal and a new job at Bayern. Often contested since his arrival in Bavaria, he still won the Bundesliga title last May, under the nose of Borussia Dortmund.
What if he missed his Parisian years? The 50-year-old technician spoke at length about his visit to France during a meeting around sporting events in Munich. Guest on set, he explains the difference in mentality between the locker rooms in Paris and Munich. “I had a very German mindset where you learn a lot from certain rules. A certain behavior that should always be present. But there are different ways to build a team.he begins in remarks relayed by Bildbefore detailing.
Tuchel: “You don’t know what we had to face in Paris!”
“In Paris, for example, the rules are completely different than here. This helps me understand my players better. When I hear here at Bayern, a certain behavior from a player is unacceptable, it makes me laugh because I say to myself: you don’t know what we had to face in Paris!laughs Tuchel, no doubt thinking of certain episodes with Neymar or the famous outing to Ibiza during covid. It makes me calmer. I understand better why the behavior of certain players. I give them more space than I would have been able to before if I had stayed in Germany my whole career.”
He was also able to rub shoulders with some stars in the locker room, Neymar and Mbappé first and foremost. “The group is always ready to support a superstar who always scores. The problem is when the superstar doesn’t give back to the group or show respect., warns the man who has managed quite a few big names in his career. He also assumes to offer them a special place in a locker room. “Some also need to be highlighted, we must not make them smaller than they are. These are only the top players, it doesn’t matter. They score your goals.”
A gentle method adopted with the stars of PSG
As a way of accepting this hierarchy that is set up naturally. Tuchel explains that great players are made of different wood from others, especially in the mental side of things. “They are very demanding and full of talent. They have a big ego that drives them forward. But you need a good relationship with them, otherwise you won’t be able to convince them of your ideas.” We then understand better his method, sometimes described as calinotherapy with some big names from the Parisian wardrobe. It was his way of managing PSG.
