The captain is not hiding behind excuses
Marquinhos did not duck the issue. On the eve of PSG’s first Champions League match, against Slovan Bratislava, the Brazilian cut straight to the point.
“For a defender, it hurts when you keep conceding goals. We are letting in too many. We know why, we have talked about it, and the coach has shown us videos.”
Videos. That one word tells you plenty about the mood in Poissy this week.
The Paris captain kept going. “We just have to be honest, honest with ourselves, and look at what we can do better. The coach tells us things, the truth.”
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One win since the restart, and it was against Aston Villa
Paris have won a single match since the restart, a 2-1 result over Aston Villa in the UEFA Super Cup. Everything since has stalled.
Luis Enrique had already gone public a few hours earlier, describing a disastrous start to the season. His captain prefers to talk about fine margins.
“These are early-season details. Sometimes you lose a bit of the feeling from the last few years.”
The feeling. That is the vocabulary of a player who remembers the other version of this side, the one that used to suffocate opponents before half-time.
Slovan may be arriving at the right moment
The Slovak champions do not carry the firepower to trade blows with Paris. On paper, the ideal opponent for a back four that needs a clean sheet before the league phase turns serious.
Those are also precisely the games that catch out a wobbling team. One soft goal and the defensive question is back on the table by Thursday morning.
“We have started making adjustments, and a lot depends on us getting that intensity and that momentum back from the last few years,” Marquinhos said.
Kick-off is Wednesday at 9pm.
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