Mauricio Pochettino becomes the main candidate to occupy the chair left by Thomas Tuchel at PSG
Paris Saint-Germain announced the dismissal of the coach on Thursday Thomas Tuchel, half a year after concluding his last contract season with the capital’s club, according to the newspaper’s website Team.
Argentine Mauricio Pochettino, who played for PSG between 2001 and 2003 and has not trained for a year, is the favorite to take over the team, several local media noted.
Tuchel’s dismissal came after the team finished first in its group in the Champions League, where it will face Barcelona in the round of 16, but after several disagreements with the board.
The dismissal comes after last night’s comfortable victory against Strasbourg, 4-0, which keeps the team in third place in the standings, without the feeling of dominance of last seasons.
But the straw that seems to have filled the glass of patience of the Qatari owners was a statement made by the technician from the German television “Sport 1” in which he assured, among other things, that PSG did not behave like a big club.
Tuchel, 46, came to the Paris bench in 2018 as a replacement for Spaniard Unai Emery and after leading Borussia Dortmund for three years.
The coach triumphed in the national field, but the demand of the Qatari owners of PSG is in Europe, where last year he managed to qualify the team for the first time in the Champions League final, where they lost to Bayern Munich.
Despite this, the relationship with the club deteriorated throughout the season, especially with the sporting director, the Brazilian Leonardo.
Tuchel, who many media outlets place at Manchester United next year, has repeatedly criticized the club, putting an end to the leaders’ patience.
Pochettino, aged 48, is the candidate no. 1 for Qatari owners to take over the entity, according to RMC Sports radio.
The Argentine was fired in November 2019 from Tottenham, his last experience on the bench so far.
If the news is confirmed, it would be the fourth team Pochettino coaches, after making his debut at Espanyol, which he led between 2009 and 2012, at Sauthampton, between 2013 and 2014, and at Tottenham, between 2014 and 2019, the club he led to the 2019 Champions League Final, which he lost to Liverpool.
Born in Murphy, the Argentine never hid his desire to one day coach PSG, one of the most prestigious clubs he played for.
Trained at Newell’s, Pochettino joined Espanyol in 1994 and played for seven seasons, before joining PSG under Luis Fernandez.
After a brief stint at Girondins de Bordeaux, he resumed his playing career at Espanyol in 2006.