Can Pochettino Deliver PSG the Champions League they Crave so Desperately?

06/01/21 2526

Mauricio Pochettino became the new PSG manager on 2nd January, following the departure of Thomas Tuchel who left the side sitting 3rd in the Ligue 1 table 1pt behind Lyon and Lille.

Winning league title and domestic cups clearly isn’t enough for the PSG hierarchy, it’s the Champions League that sits top of the club’s priorities. PSG made it all the way through to their first-ever Champions League final last season, but lost out to German giants, Bayern Munich.

Pochettino arrives at the Ligue 1 champions with a reputation for developing good teams and playing an attractive style of football but is yet to claim any major honours as a manager.

The former Tottenham, Southampton, and Espanyol boss will view the PSG job as the perfect way to finally get his hands on some silverware, whether that be the Ligue 1 title, the Coupe de France or the Coupe de la Ligue.

However, the former Argentina international will be under pressure to perform in the Champions League, a competition in which he reached the final with Tottenham but lost to Liverpool.

The PSG board might give Pochettino what remains of this season to bed himself in, but will no doubt be expecting results in the 2021/22 campaign. PSG possess one of the best squads in Europe and have the money and ability to attract some of the world’s best players, but the Champions League remains elusive.

Pochettino is a cool, calm and professional manager that has done a good job wherever he has managed, despite not winning any major trophies.

The PSG job comes with an assumption that the team will win the league each season and probably at least one of the cups, but the main goal is always the Champions League.

Some say the PSG job is ‘easy’ but there is a huge amount of pressure on the players and the manager to be successful and simply winning the league and domestic trophies isn’t enough to guarantee you keep the manager’s position, as Thomas Tuchel recently found out.

PSG have Barcelona in the next round of the Champions League, with the first leg set to take place in February.

If Pochettino can negotiate his way past the Catalonians, which is certainly possible given Koeman’s overall performance this season, then the Argentine will have made a big statement early on in his PSG career.