Before Paris Saint-Germain PSG went for Lionel Messi, its manager, Mauricio Roberto Pochettino already had a game plan that would produce results if the trio of Lionel Messi, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior and Kylian Mbappe play together.
Lille pipped PSG to the Ligue 1 title in 2021, following in the footsteps of Monaco (in 2017) and most shockingly of all, Montpellier (in 2012) in upsetting the Parisians. Nasser Al-Khelaifi’s routine response to those aberrations has been to open his chequebook.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva signed in the summer of 2012. Neymar and Kylian Mbappe joined in the 2017 window. And this time, arguably the greatest footballer in the sport’s history, Lionel Messi, has arrived, following fellow new recruits Gianluigi Donnarumma, Georginio Wijnaldum, Achraf Hakimi and his El Clasico adversary, Sergio Ramos, into the city of opulence.
Messi’s enforced departure from cash-strapped Barcelona and subsequent move to deep-pocketed PSG has not pleased everyone. Some will contest that PSG’s Harlem Globetrotters tribute act dilutes the competitive balance of European football and is financially grotesque given Messi’s annual wage of €25m (£21.2m). Others will be positively giddy about watching Messi link up with Neymar and Kylian Mbappe in a fantasy football front three.
It will be fascinating to see how Mauricio Pochettino, a manager who built his reputation around a relentless, high-pressing style of play, convinces Messi, Neymar and Mbappe to put in the hard yards considering they attempted 83 tackles in 84 combined league matches last season, at an average of one every 82 minutes.
More likely is that Pochettino will have to park his coaching philosophy to one side for now and just let the three of them get on with it. Keeping them all happy represents his best chance of keeping his job.
The Argentine sent PSG out in a 4-4-2 system for a 2-1 win over Troyes last weekend, but a 4-3-3 formation appears to be a more natural fit moving forward. That is the setup that Barcelona used when it was they, rather than PSG who owned Neymar and Messi – the former cutting in off the left flank, the latter from the right and Luis Suarez playing the part of the roving menace in between.
Four years on and the duo could reprise their roles in the Parc des Princes, this time with Mbappe offering the cut-and-thrust through the middle. Alternatively, Messi could be used as a “False 9” – the position he tended to play for Barcelona in 2020-21 – with Mbappe deployed on the right flank. Plenty of interchanging is likely in any case.
A 4-3-3 formation would give PSG more security than a 4-2-3-1 which would shoehorn Messi’s international colleague Angel Di Maria into the front four and allow Messi to slip into a more creative role as a No 10. That would surely ask too much of Wijnaldum and co in midfield, though, particularly against Europe’s elite – a band of clubs that admittedly appears to be dwindling.
When Qatar Sports Investments completed their takeover of PSG in 2011, they had two main ambitions: win the Champions League and sign one of Messi or Ronaldo. At long last one of those objectives has been fulfilled: the expectation will be that the other will follow as a result, placing PSG at the forefront of the sport just in time for the World Cup in the owners’ backyard.
With Messi on board, the sky is the limit. The only thing that can bring PSG crashing back down to earth is themselves.
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