Paris Saint-Germain head coach Luis Enrique says his team has more than answered its critics with its recent achievements
CLUBES MUNDIAL PSG
CLUBES MUNDIAL PSG (AP)
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They are 90 minutes away from winning every trophy that they’ve competed for this season and Paris Saint-Germain head coach Luis Enrique says his team has come a long way in a very short time.
“In January, people said we didn’t have leaders and didn’t score goals,” he recalled.
Since then, they’ve won Ligue 1, the Coupe de France and the Champions League and they’ll start as the firm favourites to beat Chelsea in the Club World Cup final on Sunday evening, which would complete a perfect quartet. Not only have they won those trophies, they’ve done so with style. A 5-0 win against Inter in the Champions League final was the stuff of dreams and so their latest 4-0 victory, this time in their Club World Cup semi-final against Real Madrid on Wednesday, did not come as a huge shock.
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“My phone is full of messages from Barcelona fans, which tells you about how big this game was,” he said. “You go at 100 per cent for everything this shirt represents and we know what Real Madrid are, what they were and what they will always be, how great they are.”
So complete was PSG’s domination at the MetLife Stadium, that there were suggestions they had taken their foot off the gas in the second half, when the match was sewn up. Enrique denies that was the case: “We didn’t put the brakes on but of course with the heat, with the final in three days’ time, with cramp and the risk of tiredness, you act.
“The first thing is the objective, which is to reach the final and compete. But at no point do you put the brakes on.”
Even so, the head coach admitted he’d made changes given the short timescale before the decider, his team having gone 3-0 up by half-time. They cruised through the second half, during which time Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Fabián Ruiz, Nuno Mendes, Ousmane Dembélé and Désiré Doué were all substituted, mitigating against further fatigue and the potential for injury.
On reaching the decider, Enrique said: “This was an objective from the start. And now we are just one game away from building PSG’s history, and winning all the trophies we have participated in this season.
“It means a lot for us, for our fans and it is a pleasure to work at this club. We have scored 100-plus goals and we let in very few. These players are exceptional.”
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