So far, so good. As often with Paris-Saint-Germain (PSG) when the start of the season merges with the Indian summer and the good resolutions for the start of the school year. Without a cloud or almost in its sky, the PSG launches, Tuesday, September 6, its new Champions League campaign with the reception of Juventus Turin at the Parc des Princes, main opponent in a group H supplemented by Benfica Lisbon and Maccabi Haifa.
Promises bind only those who believe them. On June 22, the president of PSG, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, said to Parisian want to turn the page “glitter”. Funny for a club capable, in the past, of offering a luxury freelance to an already pre-retired David Beckham. In this interview, the leader also sold the end of freebies, he, this friend boss whose guilty indulgence for the stars of the locker room and their grievances was pointed out.
“You have to discipline yourself, on and off the pitch. Whoever wants to stay in his comfort, who does not want to fight, he will stay aside.warned the Qatari leader, not far from promising blood and tears at the end of a season marked by the traumatic elimination, in March, against Real Madrid in the knockout stages of the Champions League.
Words, more words, but maybe not just this time. At the same time, a new sheriff came to town. Luis Campos doesn’t wear cowboy boots, but he likes order, rules and punctuality. The “football adviser” (the equivalent of the post of sports director, previously occupied by Leonardo) rebuilt the Parisian workforce during a very busy transfer market in terms of departures and arrivals. The Portuguese also set new rules of life. In the morning, the players hire between 8:30 and 8:45 am, latecomers (without a valid excuse) are invited to go home, breakfast is taken together and cell phones are prohibited except in emergencies.
A found Neymar
To believe The Teamseveral executives had agreed, during the individual interviews carried out at the start of the school year, that” he [fallait] bring more discipline and rigor on a daily basis”. Among the supporters of the takeover, we can guess a certain Kylian Mbappé, whose closeness to Campos dates back to his young years in Monaco. During his highly publicized contract extension at the end of May, the striker put forward a “change in the sports project”. A rather vague formula to put in it what we want as promises. Some have even seen it as that of a departure from Neymar, a ready-made symbol of this PSG “Club Med”, between alarm clock breakdowns and decried lifestyle.
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