These were two uneducational dives, totally ineffective but worth their simple existence: Wednesday January 8, at the 19e minute of the quarter-final of the League Cup against AS Saint-Etienne (6-1 victory), the Parc des Princes saw successively Neymar and Angel Di Maria tackle. This has not escaped anyone, especially not Kylian Mbappé: "Yeah, I saw it!, laughed the French striker after the meeting. It's great ! When we talk about awareness … Neymar tackling, it speaks to the whole team. "
You have to understand: commonplace in the largest squad in Europe, the defensive contribution of the attackers is the big deal of the moment at Paris-Saint-Germain. Edinson Cavani at the end of the course in the capital's club – he will be leaving in June -, the PSG aligns this season, side by side, three of the attackers among the least naturally combative.
Neither Mauro Icardi, Neymar, nor Kylian Mbappé were used to contributing to the defensive withdrawal. "In the youth teams, we always did the defensive tasks for me, confessed the young Frenchman with no-nonsense to the daily sports The Team in June 2018. We said to other players: “You're coming back for Kylian ”, “you give it to Kylian ”. "
Tuchel did not believe it
What was acceptable to coach Thomas Tuchel in a three-man attack including the tireless Edinson Cavani is no longer acceptable. Especially since Angel Di Maria, A regular distributor of assists to the three aforementioned, nor is he a rabid defensive pressing player.
Aligning these four players, finally in shape at the same time, implies collective awareness and a personal revolution. Because even in Ligue 1, defending only at seven has become heresy.
After a failed first attempt, in the second period on the lawn of Real Madrid in the Champions League (2-2), in late November 2019, the German coach had decided: "I am convinced that this is not possible (to play with four attackers). If you ask the defensive players on my team, they will have the same opinion. "
Tuchel, however, had given a chance to his brilliant but somewhat lazy quartet a week later, in Montpellier (1-3). Since then, it is in this 4-4-2 that PSG plays, with success. In three matches played with Icardi, Neymar, Mbappé and Di Maria (over thirty minutes in Madrid), PSG have scored 14 goals. Including 13 for the four attackers. More importantly: Paris has only received two.
