The 2023 summer transfer market presents various interesting stories. One of them came from PSG, which looks quite serious about restoring the team. In fact, the restoration of the French Ligue 1 champions started last season, when he appointed Luis Campos as sporting director. In France, Campos’ reputation can be considered special, because he is the figure behind the scenes who is able to disrupt PSG’s dominance in the league.
Under his control, AS Monaco and Lille OSC were able to win the Ligue 1 championship. Both of them became teams that were able to interrupt PSG’s regular record of winning the league, especially in the last decade.
Even though he was able to bring PSG back to win the league for the 2022-2023 season, Campos’ role has not been very visible, because the capital club is still full of stars like Lionel Messi and Sergio Ramos. His decision to bring coach Christophe Galthier to Parc Des Princes also looks normal, because the coach failed to take the team far in the Champions League and failed miserably in the domestic cup.
However, when the season ended and the 2023 summer transfer market began, the sporting director from Portugal seemed to be starting to restore the team. The departure of Messi and Ramos was responded by the free transfers of Milan Skriniar (Inter Milan) and Marco Asensio (Real Madrid). Both are still 28 and 27 years old, so they are suitable for the medium term.
This free star duo is in the same age range as Lucas Hernandez, who was brought in from Bayern Munich. Even so, they have won various achievements at the previous club. Apart from that, there is also Manuel Ugarte (Sporting Lisbon), Lee Kang In (Real Mallorca), and Cher Ndour (Benfica). The three are respectively 21 years old, 22 years and 18 years old. If all goes well, all three are quite attractive long-term investments.
Here, the Campos-style restoration step shows, there is a shift in orientation from the short term to the long term. As such, it’s normal that Les Parisiens after this don’t spend like the previous ones. Through this approach, this ambitious French club tries to eliminate unhealthy situations in the team, because this is the main problem. Evidently, they (finally) dared to be firm, when Kylian Mbappe again made drama about his future.
In a way, the club owned by Nasser Al Khelaifi is starting to try to imitate the steps of Manchester City, a wealthy club that has just won the historic Champions League and Treble Winner trophies. As is known, City is also owned by a Middle Eastern tycoon, but is quite patient in terms of changing coaches and disassembling teams, because they adhere to the philosophy of Barcelona (the tiki-taka era version) from the start.
Uniquely, the strategy to imitate City this time is quite visible, from the figure of the new coach appointed, namely Luis Enrique. Like Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, Enrique also won the Treble Winner while coaching Barcelona. Luis Enrique, heading to the hot seat of the PSG coach (Thesun.co.uk). Enrique himself is said to have agreed a two-year contract in Paris. Previously, Julian Nagelsmann had been approached, but failed to reach an agreement.
Tactically, Enrique has a style like Pep, which is used to playing attack by dominating possession. As coaches, the two former Barca captains are equally capable of dampening the egos of star players and controlling the dressing room atmosphere. The difference is that the former Spain national team coach’s approach is simpler, because he relies a lot on direct attack schemes, as he demonstrated with the Messi-Suarez-Neymar trio at Barcelona.
Technically, the appointment of Enrique as PSG coach is also a step of “self-discovery”, because they seem to find what kind of tactical pattern they want to try to build as a team identity. If their management wants to be patient, as Manchester City did with Pep Guardiola, winning the Champions League trophy is only a matter of time. Sooner or later it will definitely come, as long as this team can progress. Interestingly, the restoration at PSG, which was also marked by the arrival of Enrique, could also be a “plot twist” that changed the fate of Neymar, a star who recently became a prisoner.
Understandably, the former AS Roma coach was the figure who brought the Brasileiro to the peak level of performance at the club level. So, it’s no surprise that the world’s most expensive player will still play an important role in Paris. If all goes well, the restoration at the club owned by the Qatari tycoon will make the atmosphere in the team healthier. There is identity, team cohesiveness and a coach who is able to control the atmosphere of the locker room, like a big team.
For the rest, it’s just how long the boss’s patience is in undergoing this restoration process, because Manchester City, which has a neat plan, took 15 years to win their first Champions League trophy, let alone PSG who often disassemble the team.
ASL
