Coming to replace Thomas Tuchel who was sacked just before Christmas, Mauricio Pochettino embodied hope at Paris Saint-Germain. The Argentine coach enjoyed a great reputation after reaching the Champions League final with Tottenham. On paper, the former Rouge et Bleu defender failed to win the Grail, but he reached the semi-finals just a few months after his arrival by eliminating FC Barcelona in the round of 16 and Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals, before coming up against Manchester City. Dismissed in July 2022, Pochettino left the capital with only one French championship title (2022), a Coupe de France (2021) and with the memory of a new comeback suffered by PSG in C1 against Real Madrid in 2022.
An environment too toxic for the Argentinian
Suffice to say that the Argentinian did not leave leaving an unforgettable memory, even if he had to deal with several difficulties such as the war of goalkeepers between Gianluigi Donnarumma and Keylor Navas and the presence of the Mbappé-Messi-neymar trio. An exceptional trident at the marketing level, but which has most often put the Parisian team in difficulty. This evening, the United States coach took advantage of an interview given to The Team to look back on this season and a half spent in the French capital. “Paris is a good memory. Maybe people forget it but, when we put things into perspective, we arrived in January with COVID, with several injured players, a team third in the L1: the situation did not meet the standards of a technical staff who arrives.he declared, before admitting that he knew that his adventure in France was going to end from the final whistle of this round of 16 second leg lost to Benzema’s Real Madrid in 2022.
“I knew that when the final whistle blew in this round of 16, my time in Paris was over. (…) I knew it because in Paris, the objective is to win the Champions League. Not Ligue 1 or the Coupe de France. You will also agree that the club was in a complex political situation at that time. And when I say that, I’m talking about sports politics. The fans were not happy, there were demonstrations, there was… There was a lack of stability to achieve important goals like winning the Champions League. (…) What is certain is that the defeat in Madrid was our death sentence. That day, you feel that the adventure is ending.”
Pochettino wanted to leave PSG six months after his arrival
Aware that the Champions League would have an impact on his future in Paris, Pochettino did not forget to address the instability of the capital club. An observation that we can hardly blame him given the profitable changes made since the start of the Luis Enrique era. Today, PSG displays more coherence and its thinking heads (Nasser al-Khelaïfi, Luis Campos, Luis Enrique) are all moving towards a single precise objective: sporting success and not highlighting the bling-bling side. Pochettino also confided that this previous environment had led him to think about leaving in the summer of 2021, just six months after his arrival. The Argentinian even confirmed that Tottenham and other teams had requested him.
“Not just Tottenham. Other very big clubs too. (…) When this six-month season ended, there was a bit of… Finally, with this COVID story, the situation at the club, it created instability. In all areas. There was a period of change, uncomfortable situations, situations that… Which did not give the impression that it was possible to work in a stable environment, as it exists today. I enjoyed my experience at PSG. But I had other options which I shared with the club who decided not to listen to any of them. » The end of Pochettino’s adventure in Paris was definitely a journey of the cross for everyone.
