Any coach except bling-bling, is supposed to build a new sports project in Paris. That’s on paper, Christoph Galtier promised. Is the former coach of Saint-Etienne, Lille or Nice the right man for the job, someone who will usher in a new era at PSG? In any case, this is the declared will of club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, when he announced last June: “Sequins, finished”. Subtext: No more flashy star names and a place for a real sports project.
The capital club announced on July 5 the arrival of Christophe Galtier, coach of OGC Nice last season. Galtaire’s first step: Japan. After a two-year break linked to the coronavirus pandemic, the French champion returns to lucrative summer training sessions abroad and sets out to conquer Asia. This is the first time that the capital club has been launched on Japanese soil since Qatar’s takeover in 2011.
Training period allowed for the new coach Adjust your options Before the first big meeting of the season, the Champions Cup this Sunday, July 31 in Tel Aviv against Nantes.
Can he deal with the stars of Paris Saint-Germain?
There is a question on everyone’s lips: How does he intend to develop a trio of fire together in the attack of Mbappe – Messi – Neymar? “I want Neymar to stay, because when you have world-class players it’s better to be with them than against them,” Galtier said when he was inaugurated on July 5. Star management, that’s the whole point for Christoph Galtier, whose method we know based on relationship.
This is explained by Alan Perrin, a former OM and OL coach who was his mentor when he started. “He’s a coach Who has a strong hand in a velvet glove. He has his own personality, ideas and principles. In Lyon (when he was his deputy, editor’s note), he actually encountered this. He did not find it difficult to establish very good contact with players with a strong personality such as Juninho, Chris, Gregory Coupe, Sidney Jovo or Karim Benzema,” he explains to from Eurosport.
“We have a boy who was the champion of France, against PSG, who beat PSG several times, with different teams, confirms Philippe Sanfors, head of RTL football. There is respect among all the players in the French championship, especially in the PSG locker roomWhich in my opinion will increase tenfold for being the perfect complement to Campos.”
symbolic french coach
In fact, Christophe Galtier found in Paris the new director of football Louis Campos, whom he knew at Lille. The Portuguese was officially appointed on June 10 as Paris Saint-Germain’s football advisor, who wants to offer a way never seen before in Paris, and is one of the key people responsible for Galtier’s arrival at Paris Saint-Germain.
After three foreign coaches (Mauricio Pochettino, Thomas Tuchel and Unai Emery), It is also the return of a French coach to the bench at PSG, again a strong sign of the desire to bury “bling-bling”. Christophe Galtier is above all a symbolic coach of the first division: AS Saint-Étienne, LOSC, then OGC Nice.
He is in particular the main machinist in Lille’s resilience, who lost out at the bottom of the championship on arrival in 2017, which led him to the French champion title last season, 10 years after crowning the last Mastiff. He is also the one who allowed ASSE’s stability in Ligue 1 between 2009 and 2017, even allowing the Greens to compete in the European League during the 2013-2014 season. Now it remains for him to establish himself in the Champions League, a competition that still slips from under the feet of the Parisians.
