Thiago Motta not a serious contender to replace Christophe Galtier – Le Parisien

The capital club is looking for a successor to Christophe Galtier – club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi is campaigning for his former player, Thiago Motta, to become the new coach but his name does not have unanimous support within the club, according to Le Parisien.

He has a powerful ally but is starting well behind the rest of the pack of candidates. Thiago Motta is a coach whose name comes up regularly in PSG news a the moment, as the question of who will succeed Christophe Galtier continues to rage. The incumbent, who won Ligue 1 with the club this season, is still under contract for another campaign season. Within the capital club, Thiago Motta’s profile was recently put on the table in several conversations by the president himself, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi. The latter continues to insist for Motta, a year after having put forward Motta’s name as a candidate to succeed Mauricio Pochettino.

The CEO remains very attached to the former player who spent six years in PSG, but had a strong career elsewhere, notably winning two Champions Leagues, the last of which won with José Mourinho’s Inter Milan in 2010. The current coach of Bologna, Thiago Motta is coming out of a convincing season in Serie A with, one gameweek from the end of the Italian championship, in 11th place, and having achieved more victories (13) than defeats (12), with an attractive style of football in place, with a squad that was not expected to be good enough to do anything other than fight against relegation this season.

In 2023, he has not lost against the top seven in the standings and he can still climb to 8th place during in the final game of the season on Sunday June 4th, in the event of success in Lecce combined with other results going their way. He still has a year left on his contract in Emilia-Romagna. His entourage swears that there is no contact to date between the ex-midfielder and PSG. At 40, Thiago Motta is building a career as a coach by patiently climbing the ladder.

When he took over Bologna last September, he was coming off of the back of an experience last season with Spezia, whom he kept up. Above all, Motta knows the environment around the Parisian club perfectly, where he was the sentinel in a 4-3-3 system set up by Laurent Blanc (2013-2016) and where he coached the U19s during the 2018-2019 season.

During his latest stint with PSG, his relationships were not always smooth with the then coach, Thomas Tuchel, nor with the then sporting director, Antero Henrique. The first now manages at Bayern Munich while the second remains involved with the club and is also the Sporting Director of the Qatar Football League. Henrique was partly in charge of the PSG transfer window last summer.

As of the end of May, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi had not give up on the candidacy of Thiago Motta for the post of coach, confident in the idea that a former member of the club will be the only one capable of restoring order, while the stars of the 1st team squad continue to take liberties on and off the pitch. But this choice does not arouse unanimity at board level, especially on the side of Sporting Advisor Luis Campos, in charge of all sports matters of the first team. He’s not the only one reluctant about it.

In the PSG galaxy, some believe that the Brazilian-Italian does not yet have the broad enough CV to withstand the pressure and the task of a club on the scale of PSG. Managers more seasoned than him have tried and failed in recent years, from Unai Emery to Christophe Galtier via Mauricio Pochettino. He garners far fewer supporters than Luis Enrique, one of the three main leads to sit in the dugout next season.

Whilst Thiago Motta is not the favourite in the race, he is not totally out of it. To succeed Carlo Ancelotti who left for Real Madrid in 2013, PSG suffered several refusals, including one from André Villas-Boas, resulting in them turning to an outside candidate, Laurent Blanc. It is this scenario that the Bologna coach can now dream of, also pursued by other clubs in Europe.

GFFN | James Thorpe