“Mbappe was right”

• Pochettino claims that the striker did not decide between Real Madrid and PSG until the last week. On his future: “They kick me out every week, but I have one more year left.”

Mauricio Pochettino still thinks about those round of 16 of the Champions League in which Paris Saint Germain was about to beat Real Madrid. Almost as many as the world of football gives to the future of the current PSG coach, who is laconic in his first impulse. “I have one more year left on my contract” he replies, in an extensive interview with the Vaques Sagrades program, from Esport3.

“There are many rumors. I’ve been fired every week, but Paris Saint Germain wakes up this kind of thing. It is being a great experience. To get to a club like PSG you have to be a great coach, but after a year and a half I think I’m one of the best”, affirms the Spanish-Argentinean, who adds: “In a dressing room like the one we had, with so many great stars and figures, it has been a continuous learning for me”. “I am calm,” he insists.

“Normally, these types of storms are generated in a club whose objective is to win the Champions League. In the end, we have won the League, just like City”. And he refers to his European rival again when he acknowledges: “I like Manchester City because it has allowed Guardiola, Txiki (Begiristain) and Ferran (Soriano) to build, that adaptation time for the players. Giving peace of mind to the project we are going to be close to winning the Champions League because we have already been”.

“PSG is desperate to win the Champions League. The objective is to win it and it is normal for storms to arise. We turned it around by winning the League, like City in England. With the expectations and the dressing room we have, it is continuous learning. step to eliminate Madrid, like Chelsea, City, and Liverpool. We have won the same as Ancelotti, Blanc… Other coaches, but there is a lot of impatience in the club. I think we will find a way to understand each other so that players, coaching, and board of directors we can all go together”, he added about Paris Saint-Germain.

“Madrid has that competitive gene that gives the shirt, it has generated that idea that everything is possible, that stage fright that I have heard Jorge Valdano talk about so much was revived,” he reflects, about those round of 16 and the Champions finally conquered by the whites, who however could not undertake the signing of Kylian Mbappé.

“The boy was right. Many things were taken for granted, but he always said that he had not made the decision. He did it last week, and decided to stay”, assures Pochettino, who also talks about this long season in which the French attacker was so close to being a Real Madrid player: “I hate people who act like victims, but the reality is that a player who has been in negotiations for a year, who does not have the peace of mind to be focused on what he should do, has to affect ”.

Another Frenchman who could arrive in Paris is Ousmane Dembélé, on whom Mauricio Pochettino did not hesitate to speak out. “He is French, the situation is favorable, he can sign for any big club. He is a great player who has exploded this season, he has great quality and, due to his profile, PSG could be interested, but it does not mean that he is in the schedule,” he explained.

Messi and the World Cup he lacks

Regarding another great PSG star, Lionel Messi, Pochettino states that his signing “was done in three days, believe me. It was incredible. There was no other team in the world with the managerial ability to do it so quickly.” His acclimatization to Paris has been slower, but the coach explains that “moving his whole family has not been easy, it is a different type of football, his teammates have also had to adapt to it… Everyone thought he would end up with the shirt From Barcelona. But for me, it has been a dream, as an Argentine, as a fan of Newell’s and having suffered from the other side (as a player and coach of Espanyol)”.

What also unites Pochettino and Messi is the Argentine team, in which the ‘Flea’ has just scored five goals, last Sunday against Estonia in El Sadar (5-0), making the albiceleste an increasingly clear contender for the world. “A victory like the one in the Copa América was needed. A spirit was conceived that has been evolving. So many games without defeat indicate that they are on the right track, and can be a serious candidate for the World Cup. I’d love to. Having Messi with his maturity, it would be incredible for him to win a World Cup with Argentina, that is what he lacks”, Pochettino signs.