Paris (AFP)
The Coupe de France, Idrissa Gana Gueye has already won it twice with Lille in 2011 and PSG last year, but the Senegalese midfielder is mainly thinking of the semi-finals of the Champions League and his tenure will go through a new match at full speed against Angers on Wednesday (6:45 p.m.) in the quarter-finals.
To take advantage of Neymar's arabesques and Kylian Mbappé's acceleration, you need the balloons tirelessly raised from the mine by the powerful Senegalese recuperator.
To qualify his impressive matches against Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals, both back and forth (3-2, 0-1), his coach Mauricio Pochettino had compared him to "a machine".
"He has progressed enormously", greeted AFP Fred Bompard, former assistant to Rudi Garcia in Lille, where "Gana", now 31 years old, landed at 17 from the Diambars Institute, a prestigious football school in Senegal and started pro at 19.
"He is able to run for a long time," continues the current coach of Guingamp (L2).
"In recovery, he has always been like that, in the harassment, he will seek the ball in the feet of the opponent."
But the machine seemed to have stalled in the middle of a difficult winter on an individual level.
Already last year, transferred for around 32 million euros from Everton, he plunged after a thunderous debut, including a huge game against Real Madrid in the Champions League.
- "Ideal teammate" -
This winter, against Saint-Étienne (1-1) in January, for Pochettino's first match, he had missed assists, lost easy balls ... Exit at the break in Barcelona (4-1), Gueye had been catastrophic in the next match against Monaco, winner 2-0 at the Parc des Princes.
But "he always remains calm, despite the small hiccups," Jimmy Adjovi-Boco, one of the founders of Diambars, told AFP.
"For me, he is the ideal teammate", certifies the Beninese.
Gana, his middle name, the first name of his grandfather, the one that is flocked on his shirts, "is a wonderful boy", continues Bompard.
"I loved working with him, he was much younger, and he was already a quiet force. He never got angry, always lucid."
Author of the Cup-Championship double with Lille, Garcia's former assistant recalls that at 21 years old, Gueye "had ensured in the final of the Coupe de France: + Flo + Balmont was injured, he had replaced him, and we had won , against Paris (1-0) and more! "
Critics therefore did not shake the Senegalese milieu.
Its stimulus qualities, in particular, were called into question.
His name had even circulated for a transfer window this winter (he is under contract until 2023).
- "Not just artists" -
"Attention! He is a good footballer," intervenes Bompard.
"He is not a player of the last pass, but he still participates in the construction, in support. He is very important, especially in a team like Paris which makes the play", as it should be the case in quarter of Cup final Wednesday at the Parc against Angers.
"We do not need only artists to form a team," notes the president of the Diambars, Saer Seck, for AFP.
"We should not confuse", continues Adjovi-Boco.
"They are not the same type of player, Verratti is more creative. Idrissa is not in this register."
Gueye evolves more in that of the "warrior", believes Adjovi-Boco, "but even if he makes mistakes, you will never see him in a fight, never in stories".
For Saer Seck, Gueye "is absolutely essential for recovery, he has shown that he should be an indisputable holder at PSG" for the Champions League semi-final against Manchester City (April 28-May 4).
"If you want to play with a compact block, recover and throw the arrows in front, you need someone to recover the ball", continues the boss of Diambars.
By not playing the 2020 final lost to Bayern (1-0), "Gana Gueye is perhaps the stone that missed during the conquest of the Champions League", thinks Seck even, about a cog essential of the Parisian machine.
© 2021 AFP