Nuno Mendes opens up on move to PSG and playing alongside Neymar, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé

After yet another early exit from the Champions League, Paris Saint-Germain have a major rebuild on their hands – and Nuno Mendes will inevitably be a major part of it. While his teammates struggled to break down Bayern Munich’s sturdy defence, the Portuguese wing-back pierced through the Bavarian wall several times, albeit to no avail. 

The fact that the former Sporting CP man was one of the few to emerge unscathed from PSG’s performance speaks volumes of the status he has in the French capital, at only 20 years of age. Last year, the teenage Mendes brushed off any pressure that could have come from his hefty transfer fee and imposed himself as the undisputed main man on the team’s left-flank.

He featured in most of the team’s tumultuous – albeit title-winning – campaign, and was among the nominees for Young Player of the Year at the end of the season, along with being named in Team of the Year. And while his dynamic style of play may have come off as erratic to start with, this season has seen him fine-tune his final product, finding the net twice and delivering four assists in all competitions.

In an interview with OneFootball as part of the FedEx Next in Line series, Mendes points to a former Bayern Munich player in David Alaba as one of his inspirations in his position:

“Since I was little, I really liked the way he played. He’s a player who scores a lot of goals, both from free kicks and in open play. He defends very well. I think he does almost everything well.”

The 20-year-old has made the step up to playing alongside World Cup winners and European veterans look effortless. His never-ending inclination for bombing forward, often deep into the opposition’s penalty area, and combining with Kylian Mbappé effectively makes him the team’s fourth attacker, complementing the star trident that also includes Neymar and Lionel Messi. Mendes is not only incisive enough to make the most of the space that the front three open up, but also technically proficient enough to keep up with them in the midst of their intricate build-up play. It’s an aspect of the game which the wing-back himself acknowledges he needed to adapt to when he first moved to France:  

“It was a big change when I got here. The players think very fast. They play one or two touches, simple football. The players are top notch.”

Playing with a seven-time Ballon d’Or winner and the last World Cup’s top scorer also means facing them in training every day – a brutal exercise, but the full-back knows he will hard-pressed to find a better way to work on the defensive flaws in his game: 

“In a one-on-one, they can get past you very easily. Facing them in training allows me to improve every day. Whenever we train and I’m with one of them, that’s good for me.”

Nevertheless, the Portuguese international, whose first goal in Europe was the winner in a 2-1 win over Juventus back in November, knows that there is still room for improvement. With his team unwaveringly geared towards going forward, there’s always a risk of being caught out on the counter – and his all-encompassing role inevitably means striking the balance between attack and defence:

“The way we play here at PSG, we are a very offensive team. And sometimes, when you attack a lot, when you switch to defending you can get distracted and undesirable things may happen.”

Champions League success will have to wait at least another year, but Mendes is happy to bide his time – and if his upward trajectory is anything to go by, he’ll be a regular on the continent’s biggest stage for the seasons to come.

“I still have a long way to go. I still have a lot of time to evolve. I’d like to win all the competitions I’m in. I intend to leave my mark in football. That’s my goal.”

With just the Ligue 1 title left to play for this spring, PSG’s decision-makers are once again back to the drawing board when it comes to putting together a team capable of winning European football’s biggest prize. They’ll know that in Nuno Mendes, they have the left flank secured for the foreseeable future.

GFFN | Raphaël Jucobin