Even recovered, Kylian Mbappé could not have played in Rennes. He will serve his second suspension of the season after missing the trip to Bordeaux on the 28th day. Next week, Marco Verratti and Ander Herrera will not go to Montpellier, after them too an accumulation of warnings on the national scene. In the Champions League, a qualification in the final would not have allowed to see Gana Gueye or Angel Di Maria, expelled in the first leg and in the return against Manchester City. The two C1 finalists will have no problem in this area: they have no player dismissed for indiscipline. And if Real Madrid had passed, the same. None suspended.
This is to say if the PSG shoots itself a bullet in the foot by accumulating the boxes.
There is what belongs to the character of some.
Verratti seems incorrigible in the matter, with each year an overdose of yolks due to a few faults, many to disputes.
The Italian has a reputation that precedes him.
But the phenomenon is contagious.
Mbappé also suffers from this flaw.
The most punished club in C1 this season
Most of his warnings come from his sulking and his urge to discuss the referee's decisions.
But there is much more serious, with these gestures of reaction, between nervousness and loss of his composure whereas the big matches (and the competitions) are also played on the emotional control.
Di Maria will have started his season by spitting on the Marseillais Alvaro Gonzalez (four games of suspension in L1) to end it by voluntarily walking on Fernandinho, which earned him a red card, then by insulting him (sanction to come).
Read also Next year, goal of victory in the Champions League for PSG ... if all goes well
PSG belongs in its own way to the big leagues of Europe. It is the most punished club this season in the Champions League with four red cards (Gueye and Kimpembe had already been excluded in Leipzig), ahead of the two from Porto. The record is set by Juventus, with five expulsions in two C1 campaigns. Few stables of this standard behave in this way on the Old Continent. The influence is played elsewhere. Real Madrid have cultivated behind the scenes a singular relationship with the referees which generally allows them to benefit from a leniency of the whistles or even favorable decisions. It's a joke that circulates among the leaders of the football planet: Real always starts their matches at 1-0 thanks to the referee.
Like the White House, all the leaders of the most powerful clubs know how to maneuver discreetly to arouse a form of benevolence.
No one has forgotten the often one-sided arbitration of the German Deniz Aytekin during the famous Barcelona rally on March 8, 2017 (6-1).
In 2018, before the eighth-final second leg against Real de Zinédine Zidane, the sports director of PSG Antero Henrique had launched in L'Equipe: "We want arbitration of an exceptional level".
The interview had flopped because the pressure shots do not take place in public.
Relieve the pressure
Last week, Leonardo, his successor, vigorously attacked Jérôme Brisard, the referee of PSG-Lens, judging that Neymar was not sufficiently protected.
PSG has regularly taken its pen for a few years to write to the boss of the directors of the game in France, Pascal Garibian, and stigmatize the absence of strong decisions against the opponents when they tackle the artists of the club.
This is the method Jean-Michel Aulas, the president of OL: denounce the alleged errors of the whistles to obtain more favors in the following match.
But this recurring annoyance also indicates that the example rarely comes from above at PSG.
Mauricio Pochettino tried to calm the spirits while Marco Verratt was very upset against the referee of the semi-final second leg.
Reuters / Phil Noble
A man seems determined to change the movement: Mauricio Pochettino. If he went to converse without animosity with Björn Kuipers on Tuesday at the Etihad Stadium at the end of the match while Herrera and then Verratti denounced insults from the Dutchman during the meeting, the Argentinian set himself a course of conduct exposed after Lens: “I never comment on situations that affect my president and my sporting director. I only comment on what is happening on the ground. I've always been like this since I started coaching, in England and Spain. It is not my role to comment on decisions. One way to relieve the pressure.
Calm on the edge of the pitch and in his public speeches, Pochettino became aware of the problem, declaring before his first clasico in January in Lens for the Champions Trophy: “We had to focus on different priorities, different aspects . We have to talk about controlling emotions in football, it's a key element. »A beginning of a solution?
