Should we be worried about the performance of PSG before the Champions League?

We knew this even before the start of this 103rd Coupe de France final, after four months without playing a single match in official competition: we should not expect a festival of power and speed from the twenty-two actors Friday night at the Stade de France. The fears were also very quickly confirmed.

After a rather interesting first half hour from a point of view of intensity, Stéphanois and Parisians quickly put out their tongues. An image comes to mind: while the PSG has a boulevard in front of them to start against on the hour mark, Di Maria tries to place an acceleration but it runs out of fuel. Hands on his hips, his head on the handlebars, the Argentine, usually so easy on this kind of streak, lets go and loses the ball. Rin-cé.

The first 25 minutes of the match where PSG literally did not release any ball against Sainté's pressing should be enough for Tuchel not to retry the Verratti substitute experience.

Paris is still far from the mark

If the situation is the same for both teams, the case of the Parisians is more worrying at the moment, they who still have several major deadlines in the days to come. A League Cup final against Lyon first (Friday at the Stade de France) and, above all, a Final 8 in the Champions League in Lisbon in three weeks.

However, when we see the current form of the players of Atalanta Bergamo, future opponents of PSG in the quarter-finals on August 12, there is something to make gray hair. We are not going to go back on the decision of the State and the authorities of French football to have put a premature end to the French championship while our neighbors resumed behind closed doors where they had left off in March, but we will not also can not put dust under the carpet. Yes, this political decision will necessarily have an impact on the balance of power in C1 between the French teams and their Italian, German, English or Spanish counterparts.

In addition, there is nothing to reproach the technical staff or the PSG players, who cannot work miracles with a simple snap of their fingers. But it is obvious that the few minutes scooped here and there during the three friendlies in July will not be enough to make this team a war machine on the physical level in the weeks to come. If the desire, the grinta and the optics of an inexpensive victory in the Champions League (PSG are two games from the final) will be powerful engines against the Bergamesques, it is not funny to think that this may not be enough.

Less than three weeks to find the trunk

But back to this PSG-Sainté. Facing the Greens, despite a lot of clear chances annihilated by a great Jessy Moulin, the Parisians have long been shaken by their opponents. The very high pressing imposed from the start of the match by the Stéphanois greatly hampered PSG in the recovery and the two approximations of Keylor Navas, who visibly lost the notice of his game on foot during confinement, did not help anything. . Jostled in the duels, not always comfortable to find themselves with the ball to the feet, the Parisians did not quite confirm the good feelings they had given to glimpse in a friendly.

Fortunately, Saint-Etienne has been ten for an hour ... 🙈

The teams were not at the same level and the context was different, okay, but this match against Sainté looked like a big test before going even heavier and PSG came out of there with a mixed record. "It's true that we may have lacked confidence at times, we did not find positions to get out of the pressure, but I don't want to be too critical because I wasn't expecting too much" , preferred to relativize Thomas Tuchel after the match. Anyway the situation of PSG is what it is and there are still three weeks for the German coach to prepare well for his quarter-final. It will not be luxury before facing the mad dogs of Atalanta.

Sport

PSG-ASSE: Paris recovers its Coupe de France after a match more choppy than sexy

Sport

PSG-ASSE: "They love each other, it's clear and clean" ... Is the complicity of Parisians the key to their future success?

• Sport
• French Cup
• PSG
• Soccer
• Champions League