What to wish Bradley Barcola for 2025? That he happily turns his back on his worries of the last few months, probably. Because the former Lyonnais knows it better than anyone: his status has changed. At the start of the season, he seemed to have taken stock of the new expectations around him, when he took on the mantle of offensive leader of PSG after the departure of Kylian Mbappé. But this general impression is distant today, and it is no coincidence that Luis Enrique preferred Désiré Doué during the last outings of the year 2024.
Doubts, more than certainties, this is how we could summarize the last weeks of Barcola, who has not been decisive for 12 matches. This Saturday, the newspaper The Team precisely lists the 4 major challenges that await the 22-year-old for this new year. First, and this seems obvious, Barcola will have to find the thread and reaffirm itself as an indisputable holder. If he remains PSG’s top scorer in L1 this season (10 goals and 2 assists), he has seen his status weaken with the emergence of Doué, and the arrival of a competitor to his position remains elsewhere considered by Paris. According to our information, the capital club has intensified its efforts to recruit the Georgian from Naples, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
An important shift for Barcola
But this year 2025 promises to be crucial for a lot of other reasons at Barcola. It will make it possible to precisely measure his ability to bounce back, and also to better know if he is really hitting a glass ceiling. It is for this reason that his performances on the European scene will be scrutinized. Still in the waiting room to find out what their spring will be like, Paris will expect much more from their player during the decisive meetings against Manchester City and Stuttgart. As a reminder, Barcola has only scored once in 16 C1 matches, and each new match for the Frenchman on this stage seems to increase the doubt and shrink the cage.
His situation in the Blues will also be scrutinized for this new year, because if his performances at the Euro and during the September break had suggested that he would join the eleven, his last matches, in October and November, will not didn’t really convey the same feeling. And with the return of Kylian Mbappé in March (we will have to follow the positioning of the Madrilenian, editor’s note), his future remains difficult to determine in the selection. He will have to draw from the right drawers if DD renews its confidence in him during the Nations League quarter-final against Croatia. Finally, Barcola knows it: he will have to be able to renew his game, which is increasingly stereotypical. Being less readable will be one of his other big challenges for this new year, and he is well aware of it.
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