The Paris Saint-Germain manager, Luis Enrique, was reluctant to talk about the club’s star striker Kylian Mbappé before their Champions League clash with Real Sociedad.
Mbappé has been nursing a sore left ankle and was an unused substitute in Saturday’s league game against Lille. Asked on Tuesday if Mbappé was ready to start in the first leg of their last-16 contest, Luis Enrique replied with a terse “yes” at the pre-match press conference. “He could have played four days ago if it was a final,” the PSG coach said through a translator. “But since it wasn’t [a final], it wasn’t worth taking the risk.”
The 25-year-old’s contract runs out at the end of June and the France forward has yet to say if he will stay, with reports heavily linking him with a move to longtime suitor Real Madrid. So it was put to Luis Enrique that Wednesday’s match at Parc des Princes could be Mbappé’s last home game for the club in the Champions League, should Real Sociedad eliminate PSG. “Potential [last game]? No,” Luis Enrique replied flatly. “That is not how I feel about it.”
PSG are 11 points clear in Ligue 1 while Real Sociedad are seventh in La Liga. But competition in Spain is generally stronger and Ligue 1 has not produced a credible rival this season, as it did when Montpellier (in 2012), Mbappé’s Monaco (2017) and Lille (2021) won the title, and when Lens fell short by one point last season. Once again, all eyes are on the Champions League as a true indicator of PSG’s level.
“I’m not going to answer that question,” Luis Enrique said when asked if PSG were favourites to go through. ”It matters little what I say, the favourite needs to show it on the field.”
The manager may deliberately be trying to take some pressure off his players and understandably so, given PSG’s underwhelming record in the competition. The Qatar-owned club has spent fortunes on players such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edinson Cavani, Mbappé, Neymar and Lionel Messi – yet PSG have been eliminated from the last 16 of the Champions League five times in the past seven seasons.
Arguably the most humiliating performance in PSG’s history saw them hammered 6-1 by Barcelona in 2017 – with Luis Enrique in charge of Barça back then – having won the first leg 4-0. Ever since that defeat, the Champions League has defined PSG’s season. Frustrated fans have heaped even more pressure on a team with a reputation for falling short in the big games, eventually turning on stars such as Neymar and Messi.
Luis Enrique is trying to change his players’ mental approach. “It’s not a case of protecting the players, it’s a case of staying as natural as possible,” he said. “The best way to approach these games is to be relaxed.” The message seems to have got through.
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“We don’t feel obliged to win [the Champions League], but we want to win it. We don’t feel any particular pressure or obligation,” PSG’s Spanish midfielder Fabián Ruiz said through a translator. “We can’t control what goes on outside but we can from the inside – and I assure you that we feel calm.”
Ruiz, who previously played in Serie A for Napoli, sees Real Sociedad as a tactically astute and strong “counter-pressing” side, while Luis Enrique praised the work of his counterpart, Imanol Alguacil, who took charge of the club in 2018. “They have been playing good football for the past six years. They are reaping the rewards of this work. They are one of the teams which concedes the least goals in the Champions League, and they will give us no gifts.”