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- [00:00]
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- [01:17]
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The Athletic FC Podcast Network.
- [01:24]
IO Akimolere
Welcome to the Athletic FC Podcast with me, IO Akimolere. Luis Enrique's young and vibrant PSG side are turning heads with their exuberant brand of football.
- [01:34]
Tom Williams
That's a more than reasonable ball for.
- [01:36]
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Barcala and Dembele continues his run and.
- [01:39]
Tom Williams
Ibrahim Konate gets there initially, but Dembele scores. Paris Saint Germain pounce and the man who has stepped out of other shadows this season to revel in the spotlight has got a critical goal here in Anfield.
- [01:53]
IO Akimolere
They've already wrapped up the Ligue 1 title with six games left to spare and they face Aston Villa in the Champions League quarter final this week. So is Luis Enrique one of the most underrated coaches of the modern era? And are PSG finally ready to win the Champions League? All right, with us today we have the athletic Spanish football writer Dermot Corrigan and French football writer and broadcaster as well, Tom Williams. Right, Tom, talk to us about PSG this season. You know, could they be the first team in the history of French football, football's top division, to go the entire season in the league unbeaten?
- [02:34]
Tom Williams
I mean, they've been very impressive. This is not new. PSG dominating Ligue 1 is not new and there have been seasons where They've dominated Ligue 1 and won it quite comfortably and have ended up being booed off the pitch at the end of the season because they've fallen short in the Champions League. Things are going well in the Champions League for them this season. So generally the mood around the club is about as positive as it's ever been. But in terms of their domestic domination, yeah, it's been remarkable. So they haven't lost a game yet. They are six games away from being or five games away from being the first French club to have ever completed the season unbeaten. The team who got closest to that with the great nantes team of 94, 95, who got a couple of games away towards the end of that season. And they've beaten not only all the teams you'd expect them to beat, but they've beaten all their nearest rivals and very convincingly. They beat Monaco home and away. They beat Marseille home and away. They beat Lille home and away. And every time they're scoring a hat full of goals. The only teams they've dropped points against, I think they've twice drawn against Arrance, dropped points against Nantes, against Auxerre. And it tends to be the teams who, you know, play quite defensively and denied them space, etc. But every time they've come up against a team, you know, theoretically capable of competing with them, they've generally just blown them away. You know, playing this, this style of football that is so impressive, you know, total dominance with the ball, an incredible level of industry without the. And as much as we're used to seeing PSG run away with a Ligue and title, the fact that they could do the season unbeaten and the fact that they're playing this kind of football means that people are looking at them as, you know, potentially the greatest French club side there's ever been.
- [04:21]
IO Akimolere
Well, Tom, I want to talk about the profile of the players that PSG have got right now away from the Messi as the Neymars and the Mbappes of this world. And actually there's a piece by Ali Rampling that she put out on the Athletic after Enrique signed a new contract. And I thought this quote was really interesting from President Nasser Al Khalifi basically talking about this current squad. He basically said these announcements are further example of the strong long term foundations we have established as Paris Saint Germain. And this is off the back of certain players signing new contracts based on developing the very best talent who believes in the project, who fight for the shirt and who place the collective above everything else. That is what we're seeing on the field right now. And that Change in strategy seems to be paying dividends.
- [05:12]
Tom Williams
Oh, completely. And this has been the message for pretty much the last three years. You go back to the summer of 2022. Nasser Al Khalifi gave an interview to Le Parisien newspaper and he said the bling bling culture at PSG is over. And people were like, okay, well, that sounds great, but you've still got a front three of Messi, Neymar and Mbappe. How does that work? But at the same time, behind the scenes, things are happening. They're building a new training centre. Luis Campos comes in as a sporting advisor. That summer, the profile of player who the club is targeting starts to get younger. That summer, Vitinha arrives, Nuna Mendes arrives. And they're starting to move away from the superstar model. Come the end of that season, which ends with another Ligue 1 title, but another disappointment in the Champions League, Messi and Neymar leave, but so do Sergio Ramos, so do Marco Verratti. And the players coming in to replace them are again these younger, hungrier players. So this has been a coordinated effort at all levels of the club to move away from the superstars era towards something more sustainable, something a bit more organic. And all of the players who've come in over the last couple of years have generally ticked those boxes. You go back to last Summ, Jean Neves, Desiree Due, William Pacho, January, Kryzek Varzkaliarais from Napoli, players who cost a lot of money. It's not like PSG have been picking up bargains here. They've been paying top dollar for top talent, but they've been targeting players on the way up rather perhaps than players who, if not on the way down, then players who were already kind of superstars. And it's so important for Luis Enrique as a coach to have buy in from all of his players. He didn't have total buy in from Kylian Mbappe in the sense that Mbappe is a guy who just doesn't really like defending very much. And there was friction about that. And since Mbappe's gone, he's now able to put out an 11. And it doesn't really matter who's in it. He rotates quite a lot, but everyone puts in a shift. And that's what makes PSG such a terrifying prospect. The fact that they are now such a unit. And Luis Enrique's role in that has been enormous. But I think you also need to look at everything that's been put in place around that. You know, this is something that has come, you know, from the top. And I think the decision makers at PSG ultimately got a bit fed up with the superstars. We've put so much money into this club, we've bought all these superstar players, some of them don't even run around very much and we're still a laughingstock in the Champions League. And I think that perhaps explains some of the determination we've seen from PSG to head off in this new direction. And so far, at least, it's been an extremely fruitful new direction.
- [08:03]
IO Akimolere
Is it unfair though, Dermot, to say, you know, that that superstar project was a fairly. Because, I mean, that superstar project still brought in titles. What am I looking at? 11 league titles in 13 seasons? I mean, that's a great return for all that. But as Tom was just saying, I guess it's a slight grimace that the Champions League never really came to psg because you're having Messi there, you've got Neymar there, you've got Mbappe. I mean, these are world class players. But when it came to the final hurdle, they seemed to falter. When it came to the Champions League.
- [08:33]
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Yeah, I guess it depends what your aim was. If you wanted to build Paris as a brand, as a club, to build a super club in Paris, which wasn't really there before the, the Qataris came in, then you do have to go and sign people like, like Messi and Ramos and Neymar to, to, you know, build yourself off the pitch to get the revenues of the club up, to build, build a top European super club. But you saw the problems with that then when they got to the final stages of the Champions League, the Paris Saint Germain, lots of times we saw them getting to the final stages of the Champions League and they would just come up short. They would meet another team which had lots of talent as well, lots of superstars in it, but which were tactically well set up, which were hardworking, which had a better team ethic in them, and Paris Saint Germain, year after year after year would get knocked out. And as Tom was saying there, it must have been a little bit embarrassing because what the owners of Paris Saint Germain and the president of the club, what they want is to be on those glamorous occasions when the world is watching for their team to have won. It's no good to be able to steamroll all the opposition in Ligue 1. And even to, you know, maybe for Paris Saint Germain fans, beating Marseille or beating Monaco in huge games is big for them, but you'd imagine maybe for the very highest level of Paris Saint Germain, what really counted was the Champions League and I guess credit, you could say credit to the hierarchy at the club that they kind of realized that the superstar model wasn't going to work for them or maybe it was always going to be needed for the first decade of the project maybe to build, to get to a certain level. And only because they did that they could now have take a different approach when they had reached that level. It's a bit harsh on maybe managers like Unai Emery, who is a guy maybe similar to Luis Enrique, who wants buy in from everybody who sets up his team. And it is not the ideal manager to have if you have Sergio Ramos and Messi and the guys in the team. But they've been on a learning curve and they have a lot of money to spend. They've been able to throw, you know, money, millions after millions after millions in order to get to the stage that they are today. And it does look, you know, from the Liverpool game and from the way things are opening up in the Champions League maybe for them, that they have a great opportunity to make that final step this year with, you know, it looks like Luis Enrique is the right guy to have in charge. Players like Fitinha and Dembele who, you know, coming to the, to a good stage in their careers are ready maybe to take that step for Paris Saint Geman. But, you know, they still have to go and do it now out on the pitch.
- [11:00]
IO Akimolere
Yeah, it's a really good time to talk about Luis Enrique, Tom, and the work he's been doing there. And you know, Nasser Al Khalifi also said on Luis Enrique because he signed a new contract. I am particularly grateful to our coach, Luis Enrique, who has driven great progression and cultural change at the club in such a short time. That phrase, cultural change, that's so powerful because it's some of what Dermot's alluded to and what you've alluded to in what's shifted here and the types of player profiles they've highlighted. How important is that cultural change at psg, not just for a winning mentality, but what they look to do in the future.
- [11:38]
Tom Williams
It was vital and I think the fact that PSG had that superstar era, it was kind of something they had to do because they were trying to become one of the biggest clubs in the world. World.
- [11:49]
IO Akimolere
Which you think on the marketing sense, to have more eyes on psg, raise the profile of the club.
- [11:53]
Tom Williams
Exactly. And they succeeded in doing that. You know, the branding operation is remarkable. The number of PSG merchandise you See, even just walking around London, you'd think they were the most successful team in all, you know, collaboration in the whole world. But also, there's always been a glamour to Paris, you know, as a. As a city. And PSG in their more successful periods, you go back to the mid-90s, sort of the George Weyer, David Ginella era. They were the glamour side, you know, Ronaldinho a few years. What's the point in owning a football club like Paris Saint Germain if you're not going to turn them into this, you know, sort of glittering galaxy of superstars? But ultimately, it got to a point where there were too many superstars. And in modern football, you know, you go back to the Messi Neymar, Mbappe team. You can't succeed at the highest level if you've got three guys on your team who don't defend. And for a long time you watch PSG and thought they have so much in the way of resources and good intentions. But this commitment to superstars is, you know, paradoxically, the also the thing that's holding them back. It's giving them this visibility, it's giving them this success, you know, domestically and in marketing terms, but it's also keeping them where they are in terms of, you know, the Champions League. And it needed someone with a big personality like Luis Enrique to be able to embody this change of direction. And I think, you know, one thing that he has been big on is discipline. One of the first things he did when he came in was he introduced a rule that every player in the squad had to sign in, had to physically sign a piece of paper with a pen at the training ground before every training session, whether they were fit to train or not, so that everyone is at least there. Everyone is clocking in at the start of the working day.
- [13:42]
IO Akimolere
Sounds like turning up at school, doesn't it?
- [13:43]
Tom Williams
It sounds like turning up at school, things like that. The way that he's managed certain players. There were a couple of times where, you know, Mbappe had played pretty well. You know, he scored a hat trick against Reims going back sort of the first half of last season, Luis Enrique was asked about his performances and said, you know, actually, I think he can be doing a little bit more. Again, kind of alluding to the lack of the ball work we saw in the documentary about Luis Enrique that came out a few months ago, the one on one video analysis sessions he had with Mbappe. And he tells me, I hear you like Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan was the best player on the team, but he was also the best defender on the team. That's what you need to do back. End of last season, once Mbappe makes it known, albeit not publicly, that he's leaving Luis Enrique starts putting him on the bench, taking him out of the team, I need to prepare the team for next season, etc. Etc. Ousmane Dembele this season really interesting case study in terms of man management turns up late for a training session prior to the Arsenal game. There might have been a few slightly heated conversations with Luis Enrique as well, and he's dropped for the Arsenal game, gets sent off slightly needlessly in the defeat at Bayern Munich, spends a couple of games on the bench in Ligue 1 and then ends up finding this career defining burst of form in a new false nine role that Luis Enrique has basically designed for him. So you've got the kind of discipline side and then on the playing side he has just given this team a new identity, but an identity that is dependent on PSG playing as a team, as an 11 rather than 8 plus 3 superstars or you know, 7 plus 4 superstars or whatever. So that's where the sort of the cultural change has come from. And yeah, Luis Enrique's role in that has been has been enormously significant. You're listening to the Athletic FC podcast.
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IO Akimolere
Just on the subject of Luis Enrique Doma, you know and please, coming on this Tom, does he, does he get the respect he deserves? You know, you look at what he did at Barcelona. League titles, the domestic treble Champions League. Also the Spanish national team Euro semi finals in 2021. When we say Pep Guardiola, we talk about Ancelotti, we talk about pedigree. Sometimes the name Luis Enrique isn't part of that conversation.
- [18:08]
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Yeah, I definitely don't think that Luque has got the, the respect or maybe the job offers that he could have got in different circumstances. He's a very interesting character, Luis Enrique. He's very charismatic. He's very sure of himself. Doesn't care too much about the media. He doesn't look to big himself up that much in the media. He doesn't like journalists, I think it's fair to say. And the way that things happen in Spain because of the way he left Real Madrid to join Barcelona. This is back in the 1990s but it was a huge deal here in Spain and he's not liked around Real Madrid and he's kind of leaned into that. He likes kind of having the beat the villain being the guy that, that people like to hate around Real Madrid. Then when he was Spain coach, he had a really awkward relationship with the Media, go to some of the press conferences, he would call people out, journalists who he thought were like Real Madrid backing journalists who were getting on his back. And there were people waiting for him to fail at Spain. He didn't have a, a great generation of players when he, he was Spain coach, but he got them to the Euros and they were very unlucky enough to win that Euros. I think they were the best team at Euro 2020 when it was played in, in 2021, Italy beat them. You know, Italy were kind of more, more mature, maybe more professional about what they did. But Spain played the best football. It was a really young, exciting team and they were lucky enough to win it. But I was surprised that a big Premier League club didn't come in for Luis Enrique along the way because he has, he, you can see the way he's been able to stamp his, his impact on, on Paris, even to the, the fact that the president of the club is so complimentary towards him, that he has because of the ego that he has and because of the charisma that he has. He's a guy who could go into, but, well, I think anyone could go into a club like Man United or Chelsea where there's a lot of structural issues. They need somebody to maybe to tell the owners when to take a step back, to have the personality to be able to do that, to tell big name players that you're out of there, that, you know, because he is, he was a big name player himself. You know, he's a guy who won the Champions League as a player. He's a huge name in Spanish football even before he became a coach. And he has the ego to go with that. And for some reason along the way, maybe it's because he doesn't play the PR game, maybe it's because he didn't have the agents. You know, he wasn't, didn't put himself out there the way that he might have, the way that other coaches have done to get big jobs in England. But I think that, yeah, he doesn't have Guardiola's kind of messianic type of I've changed football type of approach to things. But he's maybe he's just as, he's just as ideological or he has just as strong ideas about how football should be played and he's a winner as well. And yeah, I, you know, definitely would put him up there. As, you know, Ancelotti's won a lot of Champions Leagues and Ancelotti at Real Madrid, you know, it's just a Great match. Madrid had so many big superstars, and Ancelotti is a good coach to come in there and maybe not be as. As prickly as Luis Enrique. Luis Enrique wouldn't last very long at Real Madrid for sure, because he'd fall out with somebody or it just wouldn't go so well. But as a guy who knows football and who's able to lead a group of maybe younger players, talented players, get them all on the same wavelength, then there's very few coach.
- [21:08]
IO Akimolere
It's the issue here that he came after Pep Guardiola at Barcelona completely.
- [21:12]
Tom Williams
I think an awful lot of it comes down to timing. You know, for all the success he achieved at Barcelona and, you know, he's the guy who won their first treble. People look at that and think, oh, well, it's. It was Guardiola's team, so he picked up the pieces. He played a similar kind of football. But in actual fact, you look at the team that won the treble, and they were much more vertical team than Guardiola's great Barcelona side. It wasn't that he just, you know, turned up Guardi Aldo, left the keys in the ignition and just kind of got the thing going again. He found a way to get the very best out of that remarkable Messi Neymar Suarez front three. And then with Spain, we'd got so used to seeing Spain do well at major tournaments that his achievements don't seem all that impressive. But in the grand sweep of the history of the Spanish national team, he's one of the most successful coaches. But because he comes after the kind of high point of the Tiki Taka era, and he didn't win a major trophy, people look back at his time as Spain coach as if it was only moderately successful. I think what will change for him is if he wins the Champions League somewhere else, if he wins the Champions League with PSG having been the figurehead of this very successful cultural reset, then I think he'll start to be talked about as one of the great coaches of his generation, because he'll have two Champions Leagues under his belt as a coach to go with one that you want as a player. And then perhaps we might start seeing his name being linked with, you know, some of some of the big jobs. And I think clearly being PSG coach, you know, gives a coach enormous advantages in terms of the quality of the infrastructures, in terms of the quality of the playing squad. But because so many PSG coaches have tried to do something similar and failed, if he's the first one to kind of pull off a Champions League win. I think that will. Yeah, that'll send his profile soaring. Run.
- [23:03]
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- [23:04]
IO Akimolere
I was interested in what Dermot said about those Premier League jobs, because, I mean, obviously the profiles of the team's Lopetegi coach were probably not like the Manchester United of this world and whatnot, you know, Wolves and West Ham. But, I mean, why wouldn't he not have been in that conversation, you know, to take those teams to the very top in a similar way that, you know, Una Emery's gone to Aston Villa to try and take them to the very top, you know. Is that surprising for you?
- [23:24]
Tom Williams
Yeah, completely. I think sometimes when a coach who has worked in club football takes on a national team job, they almost kind of drift out of the conversation a little bit. When it. When it comes to club jobs, I. There's a feeling because Luis Enrique is such a Cruyff disciple, and there was an interesting sort of exchange of views when they came up against Barcelona in the Champions League last season. When he was asked whether he or Xavi, who was then Barcelona coach, best represented the kind of Cruyffian ideals in terms of his football, he said straight away, the guy asking the question hadn't even finished his sentence. He was like, it's me, it's me. Look at the stats, it's me. And maybe recent evolution of elite level European football, there's been a feeling that we've kind of moved beyond the kind of possession focused approach, you know, the kind of leading coaches these days. It tends to be a lot more about counter pressing, about hybrid styles. And Luis Enrique is a bit of a throwback in the sense that he wants total control. He wants 100% possession. And so his team, when they have the ball, are extremely carefully organized. And his players are drilled within an inch of their lives as to what they can and can't do when they have the ball. And then when they lose it, they just become this absolute animal, you know, when it comes to winning it back. And so it's. You think about the various different sort of tactical branches of the great football tactics family tree, like his branch, kind of, he branches off from Cruyff, he branches off from Guardiola, and, you know, he has, you know, PSG's. Counter pressing is very minutely organized as well and very effective. But there is something that, I don't know, perhaps there's something in his approach that might have seemed slightly countercultural in recent years, and perhaps recruiters at big Premier League clubs wonder whether it's possible to play that kind of football in the Premier League. Obviously we saw that Guardiola succeeded, but you know, he had to make a few adjustments as well. But it will be interesting to see. I guess we are dependent on on seeing where PSG end up in the Champions League this season. But if they have a successful tournament, it'll be interesting to see what kind of opportunities present themselves to Luis Enrique, if indeed he's interested in leaving. And perhaps he won't be.
- [25:48]
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IO Akimolere
All right, Tom, look, why PSU might not have a superstar team at this moment in time. There's plenty of very, very exciting individuals. I want to talk about one man, Usman Dembele. Oh man, this guy lights my heart up when it comes to football. 32 goals this season, seven assists. I mean, he started off, off, didn't start off that well at psg, but for some reason, at some point, something's clicked with this guy and he is producing amazing football. Why is it happening?
- [26:46]
Tom Williams
I think a lot of it is to do with the position he's playing in. And Luis Enrique had occasionally tested him in this sort of central striking role, this false nine role last season and you saw what he was capable of bringing to the table when he plays more centrally because he's an incredible dribbler, almost impossibly two footed, very quick. And the thing that has been kind of held against him quite a lot in his career is his decision making, is his lucidity in the final third. And you go back to the start of this season and Luis Enrique was determined to play without a recognised centre forward. And you look back at PSG's games in the league phase and he gave everyone a go at playing in that false nine role. He tried Marco Asensio, he tried the Ziri Due, he tried Lee Kang In. I don't think he'd ever played in that kind of position before and none of them really worked. And it was only really around the turn of the year that he gave Dembele more of a run out in that position and suddenly it clicked. And I think because the work that Luis Enrique has been doing on team structure and build up play and people's roles in the team, it meant that, you know, Dembele was slotting into a really well oiled machine that creates an awful lot of chances. And he said himself, you know, he's been asked to explain where this sudden, you know, kind of cold blooded ruthlessness in front of goal has come from. And he said, well, look, I've been a winger most of my career. I get the ball up on the right, I beat a couple of men, I try and get a shot away and I'm knackered, you know, I can't do it, I'm too tired. Whereas now he's kind of playing as a centre forward a lot of the time and he's got this incredible, incredible creators all around him, you know, Bradley Bacola, Kvarzkalia, Due Neves, Vitinha. So the chances arrive and rather than having to get past a couple of players and then get a shot away, he's very often one on one with a goalkeeper or he's coming onto a cross at the back post and he's actually finding it quite easy and he's obviously done work on his finishing. He's obviously learned to be a little bit more cool headed. So I think it's a convergence of various different factors and a really important element to his game as well is his off the ball work. The amount of work he puts in to try and win the ball back. The guy leading the press, he's always had these remarkable physical qualities and I think in Luis Enrique and in the kind of makeup of this particular iteration of psg, he's found the perfect match for his attributes as a footballer for sure.
- [29:21]
IO Akimolere
Dermot, I know you'd have seen him at Barcelona. That 135 million euros, I think it was in 2017, still one of the highest transfer fees ever paid for a player. His Barcelona career was so interesting because there were flashes of brilliance there. Remember him at Dortmund as well, coming from there, A beautiful flash. It's a brilliant spot. I wonder whether, you know, we've obviously spoken about how much of a mess Barcelona can be in the background as as much as they do produce great players at the academy, but there's a structure at Dortmund that really works well with players like him. There's also now a structure with a great coach at PSG who knows what he wants and can deliver that to a player that I would say probably looked a bit lost for a few years. Do you think that's really contributed Luis Enrique, a structure at PSG to what we are seeing now with Dembele and hopefully him fulfilling that potential we all thought he'd be able to achieve?
- [30:09]
McDonald's Advertiser
Yeah, 100%. The word loss there is pretty perfect for what happened to him at Barcelona because he did have tremendous talent and as Tom said, like two footed, incredible. Like very few players we've seen in history with that kind of quality in both feet. He's super fast. But it was just a feeling at Barcelona and a lot of people around the club, especially in the media and even some people inside the club thought he just didn't understand what Barcelona was about, how Barcelona were supposed to play, the kind of traditional way that, that Barca play. But he, he also had Messi in the team as well and everything had to go through Messi at that stage he was kind of late. Messi was still brilliant, but it was still late era Messi. So everybody in the team had to put their kind of talents to, to serve Dembele. And Dembele was kind of seen as a strange enough guy who didn't fit with the Catalan crew who were there. And then for a lot of the time at Barcelona they just wanted to get his, his wages off the, the wage bill. They tried to force him out of Barcelona. The sporting director, Mat Oman went on the TV saying we're not going to play him anymore. Xavi actually defended him, brought him back into the team. But there was all that kind of stuff going on and Dembele is a, he's a laid back character. He's not the most plugged in maybe to, to what's going on some sometimes around the club, not because, just because he doesn't care that much. I think just from talking to people who know him over the years, he's, he's a kind of a, a laid back guy. He loves football, he's a, he's a student of football, plays football manager games, so he knows what's going on in the team. But when he wasn't the central character or when he didn't feel that he had the confidence of the people around him, he didn't feel important in the project. Maybe he let himself go a little bit and he wasn't as plugged in as he should be. Even last season, Mbappe was the main man in the team and Mbele wasn't doing, you know, didn't have that kind of sense that it's really important what I do. I'm the guy who can do this. And Luis Enrique has got inside his head. They've had their fallings out as well as Thomas earlier on, he has been in and out of the team maybe earlier on in the season, but Luis Enrique has got him plugged in completely, has gotten full of confidence, got him humming, buzzing, and the talent has always been there. And some of the goals he scored have been incredible. Just so he makes it look so easy, kind of. He's that elastic kind of style. He's a great player to watch. He slides the ball into the net as well sometimes. And I'm happy for him because he went through a difficult time. Barcelona, he was kind of scapegoated for some of the things that went wrong. It wasn't his fault that the club decided to spend so much on him. It wasn't his fault that they then wanted to get rid of him because they didn't think he was worth the wages. But it's come good for him this season. And as I say, the way that Luis Enrique has got on his wavelength, has got him hooked into the team, has found a position that works for him as well and has got him working really hard for the team, has been, again, great managerial work by Lucy.
- [32:51]
IO Akimolere
And, yeah, can we just have a little shout out to the recruitment at psg. Tom Vitinia, Joao Neves, two unbelievable midfielders. Great scouting. I know they paid money for them, but, I mean, just look at, you know, Verratti leaving, and you're looking at who might be a successor to Verratti, who's stalwart that club for so many years. And Fitinha has just been so, so good, stylish, intricate, you know, and then Joao Neves just offers his energy that's just, like, insufferable sometimes. I mean, that is great recruitment for this team.
- [33:26]
Tom Williams
Yeah. I think Vitinha's journey in particular is really interesting because he arrived in the summer of 2022. So the kind of the messaging, the internal messaging was we're kind of moving away from the superstar era towards something more sustainable. But at this point, the superstars are all still there, and he has to try and find his place in the changing room. You know, having been at Porto, having had an unsuccessful loan spell at Wolves, you know, didn't really have much status in the game at this point. And, you know, I think he struggled with that. There was a story that came out in the French media that at some point in a training session, Messi had Turned to him and said, you're not very good. Like he was disappointed in his level, had kind of given him a bit of a dressing down and yet he is now one of the figureheads. And initially he was kind of playing alongside Marco Verratti, but then, then what happened towards the end of last season was Luis Enrique started using him as a number six, as the guy who anchors the midfield. And physically he has none of the characteristics that you'd associate with a number six, particularly in terms of the recent Spanish tradition. You think about Sergio Busquets, Rodri, these are tall players, generally able to look after themselves physically. Rodri in particular, whereas Fetini is this little skinny guy, you know, not great in the air, but incredible work rate. And he's very often the guy who gets PSG going. He drops in into the defensive line to pick up the ball. And whereas Verratti was. Was extremely good at receiving the ball with his back to goal and, you know, holding off players and sort of wriggling away from them. Bettina really likes receiving the ball and facing the play and his ability to do that. The risks that he occasionally takes, you know, wriggling between challenges on the edge of the box, but knowing that if does that the first line of opposition press has been broken and they're going to be away. That's been a key element to the way that PSG play under Luis Enrique and then Joao Neves. I mean, a similar kind of player, a little Portuguese midfielder. And I think this is a sign of the extent to which Luis Campos and Luis Enrique have been in lockstep. I think a lot of clubs would have thought one little Portuguese guy who can be knocked off the ball by anyone over 5 foot 10 is a risk in itself. Having two of them feels potentially slightly careless, but their industry, their quality on the ball has just taken PSG to the next level. And I think it's a sign of the thinking being aligned of the need to have this level of technical mastery in that area of the pitch. And I think there will have been reservations at PSG about associating the two of them in that part of the pitch. Look at the way that they blew Liverpool out of the water. Like one of the most impressive midfield trios in European football this season. Fabian Ruiz as well plays an enormously important role. Someone who is physically a little bit more imposing. But yeah, it's been a massive part of this new way of playing that PSG have happened upon. And I think it helps that they're so great to watch. I think that's one of the reasons why people, people are, you know, perhaps sort of softening.
- [36:46]
IO Akimolere
Yes.
- [36:46]
Tom Williams
With regards to the way they think about psg. And PSG is a club may never be super popular, but it's very difficult not to enjoy watching this team. At least now.
- [36:54]
IO Akimolere
You're spot on. You took the words right out of my mouth because I was going to say, dare I say, are we softening from a neutral perspective to psg? You know, we've got, they've got some likable characters, you know, Arnold Slot recently said, you know, this is one of the wealthiest teams in the world and we can't get away from that. But in terms of recruitment, has this recruitment allowed the neutral fan to think, oh, I quite like PSG now. This is, this is fun to watch. Dembele, Vitinha, you know, Joao Neves.
- [37:23]
McDonald's Advertiser
Yeah, I think so. And Vitinha, like, it's just been a tremendous player and just tremendously exciting to watch. Even a couple of years ago when the team weren't as, as well put together as they are now, just what little guy gets on the ball? Seems to be everywhere, popping up all over the field, but super intelligent in how he, how he uses the, how he is always available for teammates when they're in trouble. He's there to, you know, receive the ball, to get them out of trouble, to move the ball onto another part of the pitch where there is space. And like Tom was saying there about Rodri and Busquets, I take it that Fitinha is not as tall as they are, but he's very similar to Busquets in the way that he plays. The role he plays for PSG is very similar to how late era Busquets played in that Spain team. That everything goes through him, that he's kind of like an umbrella. He's the, the, the at the point of the umbrella, especially off the ball as well. When they press up the pitch, I want to pin a team back in. He's the guy who takes super risks and he's supposed to be the deepest guy in midfield, but sometimes he's 30 yards from goal and he knows you especially happen with, with Busquets, but I think Vitinia has that as well, that he knows where the danger is going to be, can read what the opposition team are going to do, maybe because he's been talking to Luis Enrique beforehand and they've kind of worked out how we're going to press this team, how we're going to stop them and they win the Ball back and he moves it very quickly and it's been, yeah, like it wasn't difficult to go, okay, if you're at PSG and you're sporting director to say, okay, we have the money, we'll get Messi when he's going to leave Barcelona, or we'll get Sergio Ramos, we'll pick up these big name players and we'll sign them. But signing Vitinia, Nuno Mendes as well at left back, some of the players that they've, they've picked up from leagues, you know, it wasn't that they had to fight off Real Madrid to, to get them or, you know, United and Chelsea were in for them as well. They have done some very clever, clever recruitment. As Tom said, they're not picking them up on the cheap. They're able to go and spend, okay, 50, 60 million on a 20 year old Portuguese and hope that it works out, which not all clubs can do. But in a lot of cases they've been clever. The guys who they have identified very early coming from Portugal have become, you know, some of the best players in Europe and had a chat with somebody around PSG that if they do go on and win it, you know, who's going to be their Ballon d'or candidate? Is it if you win the Champions League often, you know, there's a big push for the key player in your team to, to win the Ballon d'or. Some people would say Dembele maybe. Depends if he scores a lot of goals and they go on and do it. But Vitinha is the guy who's the key to the, to the team. I think he's probably the, the best player at psg maybe, or that I've seen, from what I've seen in psg, the key player in the team. And again, he's a kind of unsung, but maybe not as unsung anymore.
- [39:58]
Tom Williams
Yeah.
- [39:58]
IO Akimolere
Very quickly we have to talk about Kvica. Kvalatskhelia. And you know, I love watching those little clips on YouTube or on socials. And there was this one, I can't remember who played the ball in. He took the most beautiful touch in the air.
- [40:11]
Tom Williams
Brings the ball down against Rennes. Yeah.
- [40:13]
IO Akimolere
Oh, my God. Absolutely sumptuous. But, you know, there was always this worry how a player that was so good at Napoli under a Spalletti kind of ideology would operate elsewhere. And as Dermot said, you know, it didn't come cheap. But how are the fans taken to it?
- [40:28]
Tom Williams
I think they really like him and it wasn't like there appeared to be a massive niche for PSG to sign him because you had that front three, you know, you had Dembele, you had Bacola, you had, you have guys at Lee Kang in who could come in from time to time. You've got, you know, Gonzalo Ramos on the bench. But I think what Kvatskhelia has brought is another similar profile. A player who can play on either flank, who can play through the middle, as he often does for Georgia. And you know, another fantastic dribbler, A brilliant collection of dribblers at PSG this season. Absolute ballers to a man. And yeah, kvatskhalia I think inevitably took a little bit of time to get going. You know, the first really big move of his career. New country, new language, new changing room, etc. Etc. Finding his place in this team, which has a very set way of playing, which is a very demanding head coach. But we are now starting to see signs of, of, you know, what he's capable of doing. His. His first Ligan goal was a thing of absolute beauty. The playing at home to Monaco. Ball gets played into him in the penalty area in the sort of inside right kind of chann and he shakes to shoot with his right foot, cuts inside onto his left foot and Christian Mauisa, the Toulouse centre back, just comes sliding in one of those like actions that is just dying out to be memed. And sure enough, Christian Mouisa ends up in those clips of like, you know, the guy kind of floating through space, sticks it top left with his left foot. He was brilliant against Liverpool, particularly in the first leg. I mean, missed out on a sensational goal because he was offside by literally about half an inch. But yeah, seems to have found his feet and he might not necessarily start against Aston Villa in the first leg because Desiree Dui is another very strong candidate.
- [42:41]
IO Akimolere
Definitely was spoken about him, he's so.
- [42:43]
Tom Williams
Good for that position. But yeah, it feels like he's slotted in relatively seamlessly. And again, without wishing to labour the point too much, just another player who makes PSG extremely watchable with that dribbling style that is so unique. And you know, Bacola is similar to this in that it's, it's not fancy stepovers, you know, it's not kind of showy touches, they can skip past players. It's very kind of old fashioned, isn't it? It's all kind of like, it's all in the suggestion, it's all in the hips, in the body movement. And yeah, I mean another player who's just a dream to watch.
- [43:18]
IO Akimolere
Also part of the low socks crew, Cavite Kaliskelia. Love it. All right, let's move on. Coming up, we'll talk PSG's Champions League. Hope.
- [43:34]
Lowe's Advertiser
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- [44:06]
Robert Vinloen
I'm from New York Times Games, and I'm here talking to people about wordle and the wordle archive. Do you all play wordle? I play it every day.
- [44:11]
McDonald's Advertiser
All right.
- [44:11]
Robert Vinloen
I have something exciting to show you.
- [44:13]
Tom Williams
Oh, okay.
- [44:14]
Robert Vinloen
This is new. It's the wordle Archive.
- [44:16]
IO Akimolere
What?
- [44:18]
McDonald's Advertiser
Okay, that's awesome.
- [44:19]
Robert Vinloen
So now you can play every wordle that has ever existed. There's like a thousand puzzles. What day would you pick?
- [44:24]
McDonald's Advertiser
Let's go back to my birthday. My first guess is going to be birth, because it's my birthday. What made you guys do an archive?
- [44:30]
Robert Vinloen
It's one of our most requested features. A bunch of our other games have archives.
- [44:34]
McDonald's Advertiser
Like the crossword puzzle?
- [44:35]
Robert Vinloen
Yeah, exactly like the crossword. You know, you can catch up if you missed one, which is pretty cool.
- [44:39]
McDonald's Advertiser
Wordle Archive.
- [44:41]
Tom Williams
Oh, cool.
- [44:42]
McDonald's Advertiser
Now you can do yesterday's wordle if you missed it.
- [44:44]
Robert Vinloen
Thanks so much for coming. By talking to us and playing New York Times game subscribers can now access the entire Wordle archive. Find out more at nytimes.com games My.
- [44:53]
McDonald's Advertiser
Default word is always bread. Why I like bread.
- [45:05]
Tom Williams
This is the Athletic FC podcast with I.O. acemolare.
- [45:12]
IO Akimolere
Okay, a familiar face will be arriving in Paris on Wednesday as Unai Emery goes up against his former employees with Aston Villa. Here's our Villa correspondent, Jacob Tanswell on what it means for the club to be in the latter stages of the competition. For the team, for the club, for.
- [45:30]
Tom Williams
The player, for the coaches. For me, it's a huge challenge we have in front, and of course, we.
- [45:34]
IO Akimolere
Are very excited, very motivated.
- [45:37]
Jacob Tanswell
I think playing in championship, obviously, quarter final really serves as a touchstone of Villa's progress in the last two and a half years under Emery. Because if you look at the transformation in that short amount of time, relatively speaking, it's been extraordinary. You've got to remember that when Emery took over, Villa were relegation contenders after Steven Gerrard's miserable tenure to then qualify him for the Conference League in that first half a season and then making the big leap to secure in the top four finish in his first full campaign. So when you look at that and you see see it through that prism, then you can say progress has been undeniable. And there is a sense among supporters, among staff, among players that Villa just keep on building with every season. So for example, you take league form, it's been pretty patchy this season, but Villa are now going to Paris on the back of seven successive wins across all competitions. And there's a sense internally that they're actually peaking. So if anything, this is probably the best moment in their season physically and mentally to take take on the daughter task of going to Paris and facing psg.
- [46:36]
IO Akimolere
I mean Dermot Unai Emery and I know you've watched a fair bit of him in Spain still the most decorated coach in the, in the Europa League. He's a bit of a tournament specialist. Let's just reel back from what you've seen with him. I mean what makes him so good in major tournaments because some might say Villa in the Champions League this season season are punching above their weight.
- [46:57]
McDonald's Advertiser
Yeah, he's tremendous record in the Europa League. And there's also that a Champions league run with Villarreal 2223 when they did not that Juventus and Bayern Munich and what stood out from those games is just what a detailed and excellent game plan. Unaramy had to take on bigger opponents who maybe have bigger names in the team who maybe aren't as cohesive and unai emer who's able to pick out weaknesses in their defense defense and drill his his players on the, on the training grid. Thomas saying about how Luis Enrique loves to drill his players. Emory as well is a guy who will, you know, watch a lot of videos of the opponents. He said he'd watch bayern I think 12 times in the run up to those games. Remember speaking to, to Arnaud Danjuma who was at for at that stage and he was talking about how Emery had sat him down with the video and said look, you're going to run here, we're going to play the ball here. Powtards is going to step out from the back, he's going to play it into midfield and I Perego is going to knock it in behind and you're going to be there to get on the end of it and that worked. They shocked the teams. He had players who would do exactly what he asked them to do, who had the confidence that if I do what UNAI is telling me what to do, the space will appear, things will work out. The way that he says it, sometimes when you get to the very top level and you have the very top players, they don't like been told, been given that amount of detail about what they're supposed to do. So at a club like Villa, with players who are, you know, a lot of them, this is their first experience in the Champions League. It's going to be the biggest game games of their careers. They'll do anything to succeed on that stage. They see themselves as maybe fortunate. They wouldn't be there if it wasn't for Naimer. He's the guy who's brought them along and it's huge for him to be going back to Paris. The two guys know each other really well. They've been coaching against each other going Back to like 2012, I think when Emery was in Sevilla, Luis Enrique was at Celta Vigo, they had those, the Paris St. Germain, Barca, you know, the four nil and the six one, you know, it's all there in the mind and they will, they're peers, like they're guys who super competitive, know each other really well, who's going to get a much higher profile playing career than Emery did. But for those two guys who think so much about the game, who, you know, put so much effort into planning into how it's going to work out on the day it's going to be. Yeah, super fascinating to see how it's going to work out.
- [49:11]
IO Akimolere
Yeah, I mean, Tom, there's some box office ties in this round of the Champions League and actually I think this one is also going to be box office office for tactical nounce of two managers really, really good at getting the best out of their teams. But you know, going into this tournament, I don't know if many people would have seen PSG as favorites to win the Champions League. And PSG are still looking for a Champions League to say they are one of the best teams in Europe. Is this the season for them?
- [49:38]
Tom Williams
It could well be. I mean you look at some of the other usual candidates and you know, Manchester City having this very strange season have fallen by the wayside. Liverpool looked like the best team in Europe and PSG have already beaten them. Real Madrid are not exactly firing on all cylinders. Not that that has ever stopped us from in the Champions League in the past. Yeah, Barcelona clearly an Exceptional team to watch. Are they the finished article yet? Perhaps not. So it feels like there's an opportunity here for PSG to win the Champions El. I think in terms of performance level, what they showed over two legs against Liverpool, okay, they only beat them on penalties, but, you know, if it was a boxing match and it had gone to points, I mean, there would have been no contest whatsoever. And I think that has kind of, that's made the whole sort of football incontinent sit up and take notice. The messaging around the Champions League from PSG is interesting, though, because during this kind of period of cultural recalibration, the message has been, it's not an obsession anymore. We were wrong to make it an obsession in the first place. When the Qataris bought PSG in 2011, Nasser Al Khalifi said, we're going to win it in five years. That's the goal. And so straight away you have this idea that if PSG don't win the Champions League, the whole thing has been a failure. And the messaging the last couple of years has been, been, it's, it's about more than that. You know, our success as a club and our identity as an institution doesn't live or die on what happens in the Champions League. And Al Khalifi has been saying that, you know, pretty regularly. Every time he's asked the question, you know, is this the season? Do you have to win it this season? He says, no, you know, we might win it this season, we might win it next season. Maybe it'll take us eight years. You know, maybe we won't get there, but we're on a different kind of journey. But the whole of the football world is saying, well, hang on, this, this looks like it might be the season. And I think, and you know, you can make a comparison here with Manchester City. The football world will not judge this PSG era, the Qatari era at PSG as a success until they win the Champions League. So the messaging might all be, well, we don't have to win the Champions League. It's not obsession anymore, blah, blah, blah. It would be enormous. I mean, it would, it would kind of retrospectively validate all the kind of the ups and downs, the upheaval, the superstars, the penalty controversies, the, the warring egos. If they, if they finally lift that Champions League trophy in Munich at the end of the season, then they can kind of turn on and say, well, look, we've kind of got to where we were trying to get to. So it, it does feel like they've got a very good opportunity and it would be a transformative thing for the club if this were to finally be the season when they win it.
- [52:30]
McDonald's Advertiser
They're filling nobody with that message.
- [52:34]
IO Akimolere
That's some reverse psychology to me, though.
- [52:36]
McDonald's Advertiser
I'm just saying it doesn't really matter if we win the Champions League or not for Lucy Rinka to. If they do go on and win it and they, you know, have beaten Man City, Pep Guardiola's Man City in the group stage. They've knocked out Liverpool, they beat Emery, they possibly have to beat Real Madrid, which for Luis Enrique to go to Real Madrid and win will be a huge thing. And then they could get Barcelona in the final, where he'd be going back to his old club or up against his old club. For him personally, they're the type of challenges that I'm sure he's looked at it. I'm sure that that motivates him, that extra motivates him to go along and do it. And it's very open. It's the most open Champions League, maybe in a good while. It's hard to pick who's going to win, but PSG have a great chance and there's a lot of people, as we were saying before, who are now cheering for them, who wouldn't have been in previous years.
- [53:22]
IO Akimolere
All right, let's end it there, gents. Big, big matches in the Champions League. Inter, Bayer, Arsenal, Real Madrid, PSG versus Aston Villa. And also, let's not forget Barcelona versus Dortmund as well. Big matchups, gents. Thanks for your time, Tom, Derma and also Jacob. We'll be back tomorrow.
- [53:41]
McDonald's Advertiser
The Athletic FC podcast network.