PSG: Day 1

By: Brian | November 5th, 2009

national-lampoons-european-vacation It’s June 9th, and I’ve cut my European vacation short because my agent told me a few days ago that Paris Saint-Germain wanted me to succeed Paul Le Guen. I’ve wanted a chance to manage in Europe for some time, and I quickly agreed. The details were hammered out and yesterday I signed a 2 year contract worth €11,000 per year. I get 75% of that if we get relegated this season, but I fear that’s just a formality and the actual figure will be something more like 0%.

This all happened while I was in London doing some sightseeing (Big Ben! Parliament!), and I have to admit I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into. I had a cursory knowledge of Ligue 1 football and the team, and all of that had come from the TV.

And I don’t speak French.

So now I sit in my office in the Parc des Princes, trying to get my bearings and maybe look over the information on the history of the club (translated into English by… some peon, presumably). Two men walk in. The older wears a snazzy PSG tracksuit (mental note: get one) while the younger looks nervous in his business suit. The older man says something, a whole bunch of somethings, in French, and I raise one eyebrow and prepare to tell him that I’m sorry, but I just have no idea what you’re saying, when the younger man interrupts. His accented English introduces Mr. Tracksuit as Yves Bertucci, my newly hired assistant manager. Yves has a report for me on the current squad and staff. He would also like to know if I want to see the first team trot out against the reserves. I would, and tell the peon (I’m guessing he translated the documents for me, too) to tell him so. And then I shoo them out the door so I can finish catching my breath.

Here’s what I’m starting with, according to Bertucci’s teamsheets:

What I know about the squad now: Old, slow, and lacking any real depth. Two regulars, Coupet and Makélélé, are on the wrong side of 35. Even if I wanted to sell them, and I don’t, I probably wouldn’t get any significant returns. But players will be sold. Oh yes, they will.

Accompanied by my trusty peon, I met with the board shortly after Bertucci. The board told me they expected me to at least get PSG into the Europa League, and they were going to give me a transfer kitty of €2m and an extra €50,000 in wages to get there. Well, 6th place (5th really, to be safe) isn’t good enough for me. I think I can get the squad to make a run at the league title this season, and told them as much. Now my war chest is €2.4m and I have €100,000 of wage wiggle room. Better, but still not nearly enough. Fortunately, it looks like there are teams that want some of my fringe players, and I intend to milk them for every last bit of money that I can.

Tomorrow I plan to give almost every backroom staff member the axe. I’ll keep Pauleta and Roche on as scouts, and Bertucci can stay, too. It was a really nice tracksuit. Everyone else, though, is headed out the door. It’s time for some fresh blood, and I need someone who speaks English (and has a name). Peon just won’t cut it.

As for the squad: I want a new starting left back, more and better depth at the center of the defense, at least one rotation-quality midfielder, and I’d like a better striker or two. It’s going to take some selling and some creative economics to make that happen. It would be helpful if I could find a dead-ball specialist, too.

I have no idea how I’m going to do this, but it should be fun. Tomorrow is a new day, and it will be even busier than today.

(Side note: I was hoping to have another post up tomorrow night at the latest, but today my computer decided it needed to be erased and have the OS reinstalled, so most of tomorrow might be spent updating software/reorganizing everything.)