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| PSG Head Coach Mauricio Pochettino during the Ligue 1 Uber Eats match between RC Strasbourg and Paris Saint-Germain at Stade de la Meinau on April 29, 2022 in Strasbourg, France. |
Mauricio
Pochettino’s second departure from Paris Saint-Germain, where he was on
Thursday finalising the pay-off for severing his contract as manager, feels a
little like his first. He was captain 19 years ago when he played his last
match for the club, came tantalisingly close to fulfilment in it, but left
deeply disappointed.
In the 2003 French
Cup final against Auxerre, PSG took an early lead. Fourteen minutes from time,
a lob over the head of Pochettino invited the Auxerre striker Djibril Cisse to
equalise. With a minute of normal time left, he was slumped to his knees as
Auxerre scored a second.
“We can’t be happy
with the season,” a deflated Pochettino, long-haired and long-faced, told
reporters. Both he and the club’s then star, Ronaldinho, would soon be heading
off to play their club football in Spain.
Pochettino’s next
job in management may yet be in Spain. Among those bidding for the presidency
of Athletic Bilbao is a candidate who wants the Argentinian as manager.
A few months ago,
‘Poch’ was being eyed as a contender to take over at Manchester United,
although they opted instead for Erik ten Hag. Real
Madrid have also had him on potential shortlists, although events of recent
months pushed the idea of a new coach off their radar. What all these suitors
knew was that Pochettino would not be at PSG beyond this summer.
He will leave a
year short of the end of his deal, with a Ligue 1 title freshly achieved, plus
the 2020-21 French Cup victory from his
first half-season back in Paris. But he has never seemed entirely at ease at a
club of soaring ambition, huge spending power and a vastly different corporate
character – since the 2011 takeover by Qatari owners – from the PSG he played
for.
Coaches tend not to
stay very long in Paris, although Pochettino’s 18 month stint falls well shy of
the two and a half years Thomas Tuchel was there, and short of Unai Emery’s two
seasons – to cite his immediate predecessors.
Tuchel took the
club to their first ever Champions League final,
and was gone the following December. Emery survived the setback of not winning
the league – PSG have been champions eight times in the last 10 years – but,
like Pochettino, found that not making a big splash in Europe, where the club
want to be recognised as true heavyweights, was what really counted against
him.
The club had
imagined Pochettino, inspirational for much of his five years managing
Tottenham Hotspur, might coax Champions League success from a squad that, while
unbalanced, boasts brilliant attacking talent.
A half-hour
collapse in Madrid in March scotched that dream, and it sealed Pochettino’s
fate. Rather like that 2003 Cup final, he watched helpless as PSG let a lead
turn, late in the contest, into a defeat, Real Madrid rebounding from 2-0 down
on aggregate to win 3-2 in the last-16.
He heard his
and his players’ names booed by home supporters in
the aftermath, even as PSG waltzed towards the Ligue 1 title, and his capacity
to draw the best out of star individuals questioned.
Lionel Messi scored
a mere six league goals in his first campaign in France. Gini Wijnaldum,
another high-profile free transfer of last summer, was voted ‘Biggest Flop’ of
all the new faces in the 2021-22 French top division.
Gigio Donnarumma –
who, with Keylor Navas, never felt quite sure if he was the number one pick in
goal under Pochettino – knows his debut PSG campaign will be remembered most
for the way he was hustled off the ball at the beginning of Madrid’s stunning
comeback at the Bernabeu.
Pochettino’s
replacement – the Nice manager Christophe Galtier is strongly placed, after
Zinedine Zidane and Juventus’s Max Allegri were cool to PSG’s approaches – will
be asked to gain more from Messi and massage Donnarumma’s confidence.
He will benefit
from Kylian Mbappe’s decision to stay in Paris rather
than join Real Madrid, and, with an eye on fresh incoming talent, will want to
be reassured that a complaint lodged this week with Uefa by Spain’s Liga about
perceived “continued breaches” of the European governing body’s Financial Fair
Play rules will not lead to PSG being penalised – or their activities in the
market suddenly constrained.
As for Pochettino,
he is at a crossroads. Eighteen months ago, he was the bright young capture for
PSG whose reputation suffered mainly for a lack of silverware from his spells
at Espanyol, Southampton and Spurs. He has French domestic medals now.
Tuchel, of Chelsea,
and Emery, at Villarreal, would tell him that to be fired by the restless Paris
club does not prevent a coach going on to thrive elsewhere. But it has been a
difficult episode for ‘Poch’. He needs his next job to be successful, and to
restore his joy in the game.