Is managing Paris Saint-Germain the hardest job in football?
Four managers have been in charge since their takeover and with superstar tensions rising, it seems that might be the case.
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Thomas Tuchel faces an impossible task as manager of PSG
PSG have won six of eight Ligue 1 titles since the Qatari involvement started in 2012 and are on track to secure their seventh in nine years. But what they want most escapes them – the Champions League.
Financial Fair Play (FFP) is there to keep them in check especially after the arrival of Neymar for nearly £200million.
Having faltered in the round-of-16 for the past three seasons, the Parisiens will not want to be sanctioned in a competition they are so desperate to win.
With the influx of money in European football, it is clear bottomless pockets are not enough to guarantee success. Instead, clubs need their sporting directors to recruit shrewdly and in line with their managers – simply throwing money at the market will not make much stick.
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Nasser Al-Khelaifi is desperate to win the Champions League with PSG
The best example is the gulf that has emerged between Liverpool and Manchester United in recent years.
PSG appear to have half the equation with a tactically astute coach in Thomas Tuchel, but the club have chopped and changed sporting directors since 2011.
The French outfit are already on their third sporting director meaning no one has lasted much longer than two years in the role.
Former Brazil international Leonardo is the latest to try his luck and it’s his second spell having also been in the job from 2011 to 2013.
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Leonardo was re-appointed as sporting director at PSG in June 2019
To the average fan, being sporting director at PSG is as easy as playing FIFA’s career mode on amateur difficulty.an>
However, judging by the swift rotations in the hot seat – it is anything but.
If the Parisiens want to reach the heights of their contemporaries and edge closer to securing European football’s big prize, they need to add stability to the role.
Even if PSG’s manager and sporting director can finish each other’s sentences, there is still the issue of dealing with the superstar egos their financial clout is likely to attract.
Mauro Icardi, Edinson Cavani, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe are just a few names who have added a grey tinge to Tuchel’s locks.
Mbappe’s recent touchline spat with Tuchel is evidence most managers – no matter how tactically adept – will always struggle to massage the egos of their many superstars.
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Thomas Tuchel and Kylian Mbappe exchanged heated words on Saturday night
Icardi and Cavani coming on for Mbappe and Pablo Sarabia at 5-0 up against Montpellier indicates there’s a wider problem at PSG with the number of stars in their side.
There are only 90 minutes in a game and two (at most) striking slots in a team – not enough for four world-class talents who are used to all the attacking limelight.
Other elite European clubs have a spread of star quality throughout the team, but PSG are top-heavy and have been for a long time – making it impossible to please all their attacking talent.
There is a constant cycle of fires breaking out and Tuchel trying his hardest to extinguish them in press conferences.
This creates an unsustainable environment for their best players as they will most likely be rooted out of Paris to go somewhere they’ll be appreciated as top dog.
Managing a club with a reputation for acquiring the crème de la crème means they face the unenviable task of making them all feel important whilst having to maintain squad harmony and success.
There are only so many coaches in world football capable of matching this man-management quota PSG needs, and that number shrinks when you consider who can demand respect from the players.
If anything, man-management comes before tactics because of the level of the sheer star power at PSG’s disposal. Whether we like it or not, influence has shifted from the manager to the player in the modern game – just ask Jose Mourinho.
The Portuguese coach saw his spells at Real Madrid, Chelsea (second spell) and Manchester United all collapse because of his outdated approach to the modern footballer.
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Jose Mourinho returned to management after re-evaluating his philosophy
On his return to management with Tottenham, Mourinho suggested he had done some reflecting. If one of the most decorated managers ever found it difficult to deal with one superstar, Tuchel – and anyone else in the PSG hot seat – will find it near impossible.
The main prize for PSG is Ol’ Big Ears – the European Cup – but it has proved elusive. The only French club to win the competition are Marseille all the way back in 1993, and the Parisiens are determined to change this.
Since the club re-entered the Champions League in 2012/13, the farthest they have progressed is the quarter-finals – reaching that stage in four consecutive seasons.
In recent years it’s been much harder and they have suffered round-of-16 exits in the past three campaigns.
Kylian Mbappe in touchline row with PSG boss Thomas Tuchel as Liverpool transfer rumours persist
A common theme to those failures is a mental fragility that comes with inexperience in the competition, shown in the infamous 6-1 against Barcelona and last season’s 3-1 defeat at the Parc des Princes to Manchester United.
Perhaps it would be wise for PSG to scale back on their ambitions. Rarely does a team go from 0 to 100 so inorganically and stay there.
By taking incremental steps in their Champions League goal, maybe, just maybe, they stand a chance of making the manager’s job less impossible.
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