Paris Saint-Germain is negotiating with Nice, to which it even offered players, to release the contract of its coach Christophe Galtier, the one desired by the new leadership to replace the Argentine Mauricio Pochettino, reports L’Equipe this Sunday.
The hiring of Galtier is a priority for PSG because Zinédine Zidane has already told the Parisian club that he does not wish to occupy his bench for now, according to RMC Sports today. His goal is to train the French team.
PSG had closed an agreement in principle since this week for the dismissal of Mauricio Pochettino and his technical team (made up of Argentines and Spaniards), who have one more year left on their contract. The settlement would be about 15 million euros, according to the French press.
The formal announcement of Pochettino’s departure would be made as soon as the contract with his replacement is closed, something that is to be done at the beginning of the week to have as much time as possible to prepare for the preseason.
The French league resumes the first weekend of August, so the teams will return to training during the first week of July.
But the point is that Nice has asked PSG for an amount of money (the amount of which has not been leaked) to let its 55-year-old coach go, and with whom he has a contract for the next two seasons.
Galtier is an old acquaintance of PSG’s new strongman, Portuguese sports adviser Luis Campos, whose first moves already point to where he wants to go. PSG have already closed the signing of Portuguese midfielder Vitinha, from Porto, for 40 million euros, according to various reports.
Now he has turned his attention to another Portuguese midfielder, Renato Sanches, from Lille, whom Galtier knows very well from his time with that team, with whom he won the 2020-21 league by going over the mighty PSG.
If both signings are confirmed, they would represent an ambitious bet to improve the Parisian midfield, its most fragile line, where only the Italian Marco Verratti is an undisputed starter and of international level.
In addition, the incorporation of two Portuguese would show where Campos is directing his search for incorporations.
But PSG has the big problem of an excessively large and very expensive squad, so it has to lighten troops, a task in which the previous sporting director, Leonardo, failed, hampered by the high chips of the players with current contracts.
Therefore, the possibility of sending players to Nice for that team to release Galtier would be a very convenient option for PSG, if the French Côte d’Azur team accepts the idea.
