Messi Neymar and mbappe it should have been the greatest front three of all time so how did the plan that couldn't fail fail and how on Earth have PSG improved after ditching three of the world's best players of all time PSG broke the all-time transfer record to sign Neymar for 183 million they signed a generational talent in Killian and bappe for 150 million and signed one of nope sorry the greatest player of all time Lion Messi before he won the World Cup by the way now this attack could have gone down in history as the
best ever so why did the Superstar project fail was it egoo was it jealousy or was it impossible to create a tactic with these three players that could truly truly work to understand this we need to address all three areas when you sign a player for an AST economically large fee like PSG did for Neymar the assumption is that you're going to build a team around him right I think that's a fair assumption so what do you do when you have three of them well a win against pep guardiola's Manchester City in the Champions League
in the early days of the front three let's call them that had people wondering if this Trio could actually work so the PSG manager maricio pettino at the time devised a plan that saw them start in a 433 but there there was well there was a uniqueness to this formation the width came not from mbappe or Neymar or liel Messi it came from the wing backs all of it and it was Nuno Mendes and Ashraf hakeim Who provided that withth the Midfield consisted of three energetic Players let's put it and the front three were all
allowed to roam free which often meant moving into narrow areas and as I say it worked kind of the quality that these three possessed inevitably allowed them to combine at any given moment there was there was an understanding of movement but also pass appreciation that the quality of these players will always provide allowing for quick combinations in tight areas and the outrageous names on the team Sheet alongside Flash in thepan world-class moments meant PSG were feared that was Messi's first ever PSG goal in a famous victory over Manchester City but there was a huge worrying
Factor was this performance sustainable and could they dominate a game and did they even need it when mbappe himself could go from this position here to here scoring the only goal in a first leg knockout against RA Madrid the problem was to facilitate three worldclass forwards and their inflated egos on a football pitch there had to be compromise in other parts of that pitch with the midfielders needing to be defensively minded to accommodate for that lack of Defending and work crate let's say from the front three and because of this it made it easier for
a team of Real Madrid's quality overall to take control of these kinds of matches PSG only won one competition in the first season of this experiment a failure with the talent that they had and again this is with Messi Neymar and mbappe in the same team but the problems were deeper because it wasn't just about winning it was about winning with style how does a club like PSG make sure everyone is reading off the same hym sheet the answer was seemingly obvious take the approach Kristoff galtier was appointed as manager following great success with n
he changed it about he set up with a back three allowing Messi and Neymar to operate in the half spaces the most dangerous area for Fords to be in whilst mbappe led the line and here we can see the freedom and fluidity given to those front three Neymar has the ball and cuts into a central area here but mbappe doesn't make the obvious run that you'd expect from a striker instead mbappe makes this counter run into the space Neymar has just located which led to PSG playing without a true Striker at times instead what they
did was have multiple passing Lanes in central areas with wing backs holding the width on both sides and this this fluid movement it led to freedom of expression with the interchanging of positions from mbappe and Neymar in particular being an example and so due to psg's tactics the opposition would then attempt to defend spaces instead of Defending manto man but the quality and movement in attack proved too much mbappe makes a penetrative run and Neymar Scoops the ball into his path a worldclass pass was followed by a worldclass finish on the volley and this importantly
stemmed from the freedom that was given to them in gaa's custommade 3421 system galtier had so nearly solved the front three problem but after just one year at the club he was sacked despite winning the league on title he had failed to deliver what PSG had been dreaming about and are still dreaming about winning the Champions League they were knocked out in the round of 16 by Bayern Munich failing to score a single goal across two legs winning League un was one thing but on the biggest European stage the Superstar system just couldn't deliver and
so the question remained could anybody make it work could the best attack in football ever Truly Come Together or was it always doomed to fail we will never know in the summer of 2023 the trio were disbanded with Messi leaving for MLS and Neymar heading to the Saudi pro league Messi left PSG for a few different reasons he had just won a World Cup the one trophy that still eluded him meanwhile PSG fans they just never truly accepted him with chance taking place calling for him to leave the culmination of this was that after winning
the World Cup Messi didn't need to win anything else winning the Champions League with p G would perhaps not have been as meaningful as his wins with Barcelona and so a new adventure in America called his name but he wasn't alone when the chanting for Messi to leave was taking place one player who was also on the receiving end was Neymar his arrival in 2017 was supposed to be the move that won him a Balon door and in theory a champions league for PSG neither of which materialized and when injuries took their toll it felt
like Neymar's grasp on being one of the best was loosen but Neymar's departure was signifying the change at PSG the move which saw them earn 86 million from his sale was a signed that PSG were finally making Savvy decisions based around finances and ffp rules through raising revenues and reducing costs and so a new era beckoned one void of galactico star studded lineups an era built on strong foundations and compatibility and there was one man for the job enter Lis Enrique now you might remember that famous post team meeting moment between Enrique and mbappe mbappe
being told that if he wanted to be the goat and in this instance in particular Michael Jordan he needed not just to score but to defend Enrique was he was laying the foundations for the teamwork Focus system that would go on to surprise everyone Enrique's positional play tactics were completely different to gautier's fluid approach this new approach was working with a team-based style that saw multiple players targeting spaces and involving direct running these tactics truly got the best out of mbappe who knew that all the balls into the box would be aimed in his Direction
mbappe was the top goal scorer in the team that season scoring 4 four goals in all competitions the next highest being Gonzalo Ramos with 14 but as we now know mppe was to leave and once mbappe left for Real Madrid the Messi Neymar and mbappe experiment was completely over so how exactly would PSG set up without any Superstars well the 433 Enrique plays has been causing huge problems for opponents this season even beating breast 10 nil on aggregate in the Champions League but the moment that we should have have all realized that things had changed
was the game against Manchester City because when they beat them with Messi Neymar and mbappe they struggled to dominate now look at the momentum bar from this season's game they dominated Manchester City so how have they improved without the world's best players Enrique's all new tactics mean their first action when out of possession is to be aggressive and win the ball high up the pitch and they do this by suffocating Central space and Manchester City another team that plays positional play has struggled this season because it has been possessed by a lack of athleticism but
in PSG you have the total opposite when playing positional play and in that game they Haled Manchester City's Central buildup whilst also winning the ball back in advanced areas and they show positivity when they do win the ball they flood bodies forward and attempt to do things in as few touches as possible meaning the overall individualism that they used to rely upon is isn't as prominent that's the big word here relying they're not relying on it they've got it with some really talented players if they need it but they're not reliant on it Zer du's
shot hits the bar from this position and barola follows up and scores a goal that came from psg's New High Press now look at how every player is focused on targeting the space Nuno Mendes is breaking down the left here and these new tactics see positive movement from his teammates who are all running into space face and importantly they commit So Many Bodies forward this team is full of energy for both aspects of the game whereas Messi Neymar and mbappe wouldn't track back the positional ISM aspect of Enrique's tactics means that each player knows where
their teammate is at any given time allowing Ramos to play a lovely back heel into K who lays it off to hakeim to score and look at how many bodies PSG have committed into the box adding to that PSG side the most Tal ented sprinkling you could find in World football in Karat scelia and you now have the Perfect Blend less ego and more quality it has seen PSG become a better team without the world's greatest players the move away from Superstars has still led to individuals becoming key but this time they are key for
not only their output but also what they provide to the team so one of these players is Usman demele demele was bought by Barcelona for 22 million you will remember the summer that Neymar left to sign for PSG but dembele was then brought back to PSG when Neymar left again and the reason for this is that it never really worked out for dembele at Barcelona scoring only 24 La Liga goals in 127 appearances for that kind of money yeah it's not a good enough goal tally and possibly struggling to fill the Neymar void may have
been a big part of the reason but this season dembele has come of age he has reinvented himself in a position that he'd only ever played a handful of times before and strangely despite being bought to replace Neymar twice he's ended up filling the void left by a completely different player in Killian mbappe and this is how Lis Enrique moving demele from the right wing to a center forward position has seen him truly explode in output so demele is averaging less touches this season compared to last season due to Enrique's instructions for him to be
stood in offside positions which sounds ridiculous doesn't it but stick with me the positionism aspect of everyone being in their designated Zone comes into view here dembele is stood way offside but it's entirely by Design when Fabian Ruiz is looking to play a pass demell doesn't even make an attempt to get back on side in fact he actually does the opposite he starts going even deeper into an offside position you're offside then Milly what you doing man said the Jordi PSG fans so when the ball is played through to Buck col's run demb is now
in the perfect position to receive a square pass and tap in an easy chance and PSG also did the exact same thing in the Champions League to great effect I might add with this goal against stutgart to make it 2-0 both of those goals were from Bradley barola making surging runs down the left hand side so where is 60 million pound left Winger kit garat scelia even playing well the answer is on the left but also not on the left against Monaco he started on the left sure but what you actually see is that he
ventured centrally with Usman demele moving to the right hand side to accommodate for his movement meanwhile Bola who's on the ball has moved to the left half space to form an overload psg's left-sided overload creates space for car scelia and demele on the right and because Bara is fully aware of this he's able to play it through to karelia who is in the faux Striker position and this is what you get when you buy good players everybody in the stadium thinks gavara is shooting here Norman I can't believe it said all the Jordy PSG fans
in the stadium because the cheek to attempt this with the score at 1-1 against Monaco a Monaco team that is also challenging for the league is outrageous but winning with sty is in the PSG project and DNA and this team are showing it but I hear you Jordy PSG fans screaming but didn't PSG already trade good players and backfired on them that's as good as Newcastle accent as you can get by the way well I believe it's different now take farar skia for example before playing for Napoli he was playing in the Georgian league and
when he plays for his national team he knows they're never going to blow anyone away meaning he knows hard work and adaptability is needed and despite being such a flare player there of that there is no doubt to quote Ali mccoist he's a quiet personality and puts the team's needs ahead of his own and you see that in the positions that he's played despite playing almost exclusively as a left Winger at Napoli he's been used multiple times already on the right for PSG and been incredibly effective in the process but karat geleia not just with
talent but tactically has added a new layer to this PSG team because by having him on the right it has given PSG the opportunity to create right-sided overloads over and over again but this is only possible because of karat skel's unselfish play where he moves towards the ball and plays a simple first time pass into Usman dumbell but dembele was playing as a striker in this game so why is he there well it's because PSG often attempt to overload this right hand side to drag as many opposition players out of a central area as possible
it also has the aim of creating a central Gap like this one when Kar lays the ball off to dembele the first action he takes is to drive into into this space they've created for themselves allowing dembele to carry the ball all the way into the box unchallenged and score a goal the goal may be seen as individual Brilliance from dembele but it was formed because of the cohesion these players have and how this cohesion and awareness subsequently creates the spaces for individualism to take place because when you have individual talents yes they can create
things at the drop of a hat but the new PSG team incorporates team cohesion and tactical approach into the individual talent that they have at their disposal meaning that the individual moments aren't random leading to more dominance less ego and more quality has seen PSG become a better team without the world's greatest players but in the process they are becoming an institution that allows young talented players to build chemistry amongst each other and quite possibly creating the super team that PSG always wanted and what they'll receive in return in a couple of years I think
is a world-class team and not just a few worldclass individuals
