PSG player trauma: Parisians hire psychologist, problems should have been triggered by Champions League elimination with Real Madrid

Getting knocked out of the Champions League when everybody thinks you are the favourite can be very upsetting. And that’s exactly what happened to the PSG players. According to the renowned French newspaper L’Equipe, the Parisians are hiring a psychologist to work with the players.

PSG is not only changing the coach, but going much deeper. As reported by L’Equipe, the Parisian giant will hire a psychologist to be available to all the A-team players.

According to the MARCA newspaper, this possibility has been discussed in Paris since the painful elimination in the Champions League semi-final, when Messi and co. were still leading 2-0 in the second half, but eventually lost their progress after Karim Benzema’s hat-trick in 17 minutes. And after the arrival of new coach Christophe Galtier, things got moving.

It is because of the Champions League that a psychologist is to be called in. Indeed, it is becoming an obsession at PSG, with club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi obsessed with winning the Eared Cup, but still failing to do so.

The Spanish curse

Since 2011, PSG has spent more than a billion and a half euros on transfers, players such as Messi, Neymar, Mbappé, Sergio Ramos, Beckham, Verratti, Ibrahimovic, Thiago Silva, Cavani, David Luz, Di María or Buffon have arrived with one goal in mind. To conquer Europe. And they still haven’t done it.

In the quarter-finals of the 2014/15 LM, PSG fell short to Barcelona, a year later they fell out with Manchester City at the same stage. In 2016/17 came the cruel elimination with Barcelona, when PSG after the first match (4: 0) was practically certain to advance. However, the Culés shocked at home with a 6: 1 victory.

Al-Khelaifi thus banged the table again and in the summer of 2017 he ripped, broke and destroyed all transfer records when he bought Neymar for a staggering €220 million. On top of that, he brought in Mbappé for €160 million and believed that PSG would finally reach the top. But the Spanish curse continued and Real Madrid ended the Parisians’ hopes of winning the trophy in the eighth round.

A year later, the Parisians, with Tuchel on the bench, crashed out again in the eighth round, this time falling to Manchester United. In the 2019/20 season, PSG finally made their way to the final, where they lost to Bayern. Last season, the Parisians reached the semi-finals, where they fell to Manchester City. And in the last one, it was the aforementioned cruel defeat to Real Madrid.

The trauma of the Champions League

PSG are already traumatised by the Champions League. How is it possible that they are still missing out? After all, they have the biggest budget in the world, the biggest stars, with an attack of their calibre that no one can match. And yet when the crucial moment comes, PSG players fail. So they decided to seek professional help.

Psychology in sport

Yet sports psychology is an increasingly common concept in the modern world. Many players work with psychologists, they may not even have a problem, they just want to improve their performance.

In our country, we still meet coaches or players for whom this topic is taboo. In Spain, for example, Andrés Iniesta, Borja Iglésias and Jaume Costa are or have been working with psychologists. Levante, for example, boasts a psychologist, Juan Miguel Bernat, who has been part of the coaching staff since 2017.

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