Paris SG: top start for the Mbappé 2025 era, Zidane a priori not interested
Paris SG starts this Monday, May 23, writing a new page in its history, now inseparable from its jewel Kylian Mbappé, whose explanations are awaited after a sensational contract extension which promises major upheavals in the organization chart of the club. held by Qatar. But most certainly without Zinedine Zidane.
After an unbreathable and frenetic weekend, concluded in style by the signing of a new lease binding them until 2025, the time has come for clarification for the player and the management: Mbappé is expected at 3 p.m. in the auditorium Parc des Princes alongside President Nasser Al-Khelaïfi. In the evening, he will be the guest of journalist Gilles Bouleau in the TF1 television news. The Frenchman will also share a moment with the supporters, who met at 2:30 p.m. in front of the Auteuil bend.
Never has a speech provoked so much curiosity since the spectacular arrival of Lionel Messi, presented with fanfare in the heart of the summer of 2021. Except that at the time, Paris had a well-positioned sports director and a trainer already projected on the next sporting deadlines. Nine months later, the framework remains the same but the situation has radically changed.
It’s time for the “capital revolution”, a headline in the sports daily L’Equipe. PSG unceremoniously landed its sporting director Leonardo on the night of Saturday to Sunday, coach Mauricio Pochettino’s position is hanging by a thread, and the locker room superstar is no longer called “Leo” but indeed “Kiki”.
What power for “Kyky”?
Because if Mbappé chose to reject the advances of Real Madrid, at the risk of alienating a good part of Spain, it is certainly because he made sure that in Paris, he would be “the cornerstone of the project”, a formula already accepted by Al-Khelaïfi. It remains to be seen, now, what this Doha promise really encompasses.
Can Mbappé choose his next coach from the “short-list” already rumored in the press (Zidane, Motta, Martinez, Conte, Galtier)? Hard to say. Still, the track leading to Zinedine Zidane would have cooled during the weekend, the former boss of Real Madrid rather eyeing, if we are to believe RMC Sport, the position of coach of the Blues in case of departure by Didier Deschamps after the 2022 World Cup scheduled for the end of the year in Qatar.
Will Mbappé also have a say in the recruitment of his future partners? On the departure of undesirables with high salaries but low performance (Draxler, Kurzawa, Icardi, Herrera, Rico…)? More generally, can the QSI fund, which has held PSG since 2011, adapt its philosophy and its model to the requirements of the young 23-year-old striker and his entourage?
Here are a lot of questions to match the sporting impact of the Bondynois, unrivaled in France after this fantastic season crowned with the simultaneous trophies of top scorer and best passer, a first in France. “KM” has already given some leads by saying on Sunday on social networks to have “the conviction” that in Paris, he could “continue to grow within a club which gives itself all the means to perform at the highest level” .
Before also joining the Blues for the June rally, Saturday in Clairefontaine, where his reunion with Karim Benzema will be scrutinized, Kylian Mbappé, whose contract has been extended until 2025, will have to respond to criticism from Spain, where his image is tarnished after this choice experienced as a betrayal. On Sunday, he assured that he would be “the first supporter” of Real in the Champions League final on Saturday against Liverpool, admitting “doubt(r) of the disappointment” of the fans, “up to (s)es hesitations”.
Revolution
For Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, in the sights of groups of supporters this season despite a resurgence of festivities on Saturday evening, it will be a question of drawing the contours of the revolution announced on all floors of the club. The sporting director’s file is obviously one of the priorities after the dismissal of Leonardo, with a view to finally winning the Champions League, a goal that will not wait for 2025.
The specialized press has already announced the name of the Brazilian’s successor: Luis Campos, who passed through Monaco and Lille. PSG did not, however, confirm the existence of an agreement with the Portuguese on Sunday. “NAK” is also likely to be questioned, in particular on the choice not to activate the additional year of the contract of Angel Di Maria, or that of continuing with the Spaniard Sergio Ramos, exhausted by injuries. Inevitably, the files of the future and the status of Neymar, still hampered by physical concerns this season, and the involvement of Messi, whose arrival in France still remains a flop, could not be interrupted. Because for PSG, even with Mbappé, the work has only just begun and the summer promises to be hectic.