The former coach of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), the Argentine Mauricio Pochettino, said on Monday that his time at the French club was “very positive” but that he knew that “he had to win the Champions League” to continue in the position.
“I think it has been very positive. In the sporting aspect we have won the Cup, the Super Cup and the League in a year and a half, but well, it is clear that PSG’s project is to win the Champions League and everything that is not winning the Champions League can always be thought to have been a failure“, he maintained in dialogue with the Infobae website.
“In any case, it is a failure of fifty years, not only of the last season, because PSG, especially in the last ten, eleven years, with the arrival of the new owners, has the goal of winning the Champions League and I think it will be achieved because the resources are there, but sometimes in football it is not as one thinks what it can be, but there are factors that cannot be controlled”, he added.
The Argentine coach said that the PSG fans do not “give the importance it deserves” to the wins in local tournaments.
“This year we won the tenth title that is historically equal to Saint Étienne, the two teams that have won the most titles in the French league. There are ten titles. We are not talking about fifty. We are talking about only ten titles. So, I think it is underestimated a lot, it is not given value, but of course, when you win it is an obligation and if you do not win it it seems like it would be a total disaster“, he argued.
“I remember twenty years ago we had Ronaldinho , Anelka, Okocha, and so the list of cracks could continue. There have always been great figures. The only thing that has changed a bit now is the expectation, which is the Champions League, the Champions League and the Champions League”, he opined.
“The obsession is the Champions League and everything that is not winning the Champions League is synonymous with failure, but that is not for us. I think we have done a good job, perhaps not recognized externally because the expectation was to win the Champions League”, he added.
For Pochettino, that everything is “focused” on winning the Champions League” distracts a little “.
The strategist differentiates PSG from teams “like Liverpool or Manchester City”, in which there are “long-term projects” that give the coaches the “possibility” to work.
“We won the league with PSG with 15 difference points. We lose against Madrid and obviously we know there are going to be problems. City is eliminated against Madrid, three goals in five minutes, but the following week they are buying Haaland and giving the coach the ability to reinvent himself again, to seek solutions and win the English league, like PSG won the French”, he highlighted.
“The projects are different. There is a Manchester City that trusts a manager who has been seven years and a PSG in which you have to arrive and win. And win the Champions League, not the league. It’s different and I accept it. It is not a criticism. When we arrived at PSG we knew that we had to try to win the Champions League if we wanted to continue in that project”, he said.
Consulted by Lionel Messi, he said that “there is no doubt” that that he is still “the best in the world” because “physically he is at his best”.
“Afterwards it is clear that Mbappé is a candidate to be able to receive that crown. There is Neymar, who for me is also one of the best players in the world”, he sentenced.
Also read:
– Neymar Jr. blunt about the future of PSG: “If Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi and I are fine, PSG will be fine”
– New PSG coach used Neymar as an example of professionalism
– PSG hire French defender Nordi Mukiele from RB Leipzig