Is the bankruptcy of PSG 3-4-3 mainly that of Thomas Tuchel?

• PSG almost did not exist against Borussia Dortmund in the round of 16 first leg of the Champions League Tuesday evening.
• Aligned in 3-4-3 by their coach at kick-off, the team seemed totally lost on the field.
• Thomas Tuchel's tactical gamble poses more questions than it answers. Analysis.

He will probably only have to do that, however, the weight of the recent history of PSG is likely to be an extra scratch for Thomas Tuchel in the coming days. Like Laurent Blanc before him, one evening in April 2016 against City, the PSG coach pulled out of his hat a team composition that no one had seen coming to face Borussia Dortmund in the knockout stages of the Ligue des champions Tuesday evening. A 3-5-2 for Laurent la touillette, a 3-4-3 for Thomas

On arrival, the same outcome (1-0 defeat in 2016, 2-1 defeat on Tuesday). Even if the case of the two men is not entirely comparable since Lolo White had been released after his poker game when Tuchel, him, will still have the right to raise all in three weeks at the Parc des Princes .

A decision without explanation

However, this tactical move attempted by the one who was said to be master in the matter upon his arrival at PSG surprised everyone on Tuesday at Signal Iduna Park. Besides, the problem with tactical blows is that the border is tiny between the stroke of genius and the stroke of lose. Asked at a post-match press conference on the reasons that prompted him to suddenly switch to 3-4-3, the German technician did not want to get us into his head.

"I can't explain, it would take too long," he said. It's stupid, we did however have all our time. Since he did not want to justify himself to his audience (and that we have to do everything alone), let's try it for ourselves. At this level, two possible explanations.

I find no better comparison for PSG than the Pirate Ship in Asterix.

The first is that the Parisian coach feared that his central defenders would not be up to the challenge imposed by the Borussia players if they only played two in a central hinge (in the axis), which could be perfectly understood when we know that neither Thiago Silva, nor Marquinhos, nor Kimpembe have been spared from the glitches in recent weeks.

Thiago Silva had only played two games (Dijon and Amiens) since returning from injury, Marquinhos one and a half (half-time in Dijon, Amiens) and Kimpembe had not played squarely since the victory against Lyon on February 9 latest. The second is that Thomas Tuchel wanted to strengthen his rearguard while placing Meunier and Kurzawa on the wings, in order both to control Erling Haaland at the forefront and to block the German arrows that are Jadon Sancho and Torgan Hazard.

Why change everything when everything is going well?

On paper, it stands. Was it so complicated to explain? But let's move on. This tactical decision, worked on since Sunday according to the confession of Thomas Tuchel, leaves all the same thoughtful. The former coach of Borussia Dortmund however seemed to have found a system in 4-4-2 which, if he did not make Paris a war machine either, had all the same paid off in recent months. This would at least have had the merit of allowing players to have real automatisms.

Frankly, Tuesday evening, we felt that the players were sometimes a bit lost on the field, leaving plenty of time for Lucien Favre's players to do what they do best: go wild in counterattack, this which was the case with Erling Haaland's second goal. Beyond that, imposing his style of play on the opponent and not adapting to his is also sending him a strong signal. That of saying "we are confident of our strengths, we are not afraid of you. However, and there it is the German himself that he admitted after the match, his players "lacked confidence and played with too much fear, it is not good. "

Why some coaches want to have control over the opponent at all costs ... when your 4-4-2 was starting to take shape.
You disrupt their automatisms.
Even though I know the problem is not just the system. # DORPSG #Dortmundpsg #TeamPSG

Zero coaching during the match

Last thing that made us tick from the stands: coaching during the match. After all, it happens to everyone to crash, the main thing is to know how to bounce back. We come back once again to the famous tactical genius of the Parisian coach, to his ability to change the system several times in the same match, which we were told over and over again upon his arrival in France in the summer of 2017. However, Tuesday evening, it's the opposite that we saw. Thomas Tuchel never sketched the slightest attempt at change when his team took the tide in all directions.

We did not become a Sup-coach Spé, certainly, but there was no need to be a disciple of Arrigo Sacchi or Pep Guardiola to realize after an hour that Idrissa Gueye was next to his pumps. In the first period, the Senegalese had already been guilty of two foul balls in the midfield which could have allowed Haaland (first on a shot, then on a header) to open the scoring. On arrival, Thomas Tuchel never changed his system, nor did his players since he made only one change, Pablo Sarabia replacing Angel Di Maria a quarter of an hour from the end.

The most serious thing is to have persisted for 2 months with a system in which he obviously did not believe in himself and which he abandoned at the first high level opposition. As if we could afford to waste two months of competition.

Having passed through a good part of the meeting too, Thiago Silva obviously did not want to turn on his coach in the mixed zone, explaining that this 3-4-3 surprise was "no excuse". "After a match, if the result is not perfect, it's easy to say that it was our fault that we made a mistake," concluded the Parisian coach. I have to make the decisions, I take my responsibilities, I have no regrets. Nobody knows what it would have been like if we had played in 4-4-2. On this point we agree, that everything is happening.

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