Luis Enrique and PSG saved an important draw against Newcastle. BERTRAND GUAY / AFP
The Parisian coach returns to the draw against Newcastle on Tuesday, at the Parc des Princes, in the Champions League.
The game : «What if we deserved to win? Yes, we played a very complete match and we deserved to win, we were better, the result does not reflect the match. But that’s football, it’s not always the team with the most chances that wins…»
Lack of efficiency : «We’re talking about football, not basketball… We’re one of the highest-scoring teams in Europe but sometimes the ball doesn’t want to go into the goal… It’s football. I congratulate the players and the supporters, who pushed until the end. We equalized in the 97th minute. It’s like the plot of a horror film. We now have to qualify.»
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Kylian Mbappé : «I am very happy with his behavior and the attitude of the players in general. It was a frustrating match with lots of chances. We were trailing for a long time against a team that knows how to defend and counter. I am happy with my players’ ability to not get too caught up in this frustration.»
Technical accuracy : «In a high-level match, players do their best. But there is an opponent… The players are not machines, they sometimes play better or worse but I liked the players’ behavior in the face of adversity. When you lose unfairly, it’s easy to stay frustrated… Until the 98th minute, the last minute, we were in it.»
The absence of Dembélé on his return and his choices in the starting 11 : «My luck is to have a very large workforce. We played with Danilo Pereira at the back because he has good ability with the ball and we wanted to dominate. We were superior to our opponent. The complexity in this group is that we could go through as a loser, we could be eliminated by drawing, we would be first by winning… We remain master of our destiny before the last day and that was our objective.»
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Penalty or not at the end : «I haven’t reviewed the footage, that’s not my job, it’s to improve the team’s play.»
PSG, a young team : «This is not a problem here. This evening (Tuesday), we showed that the team is strong and has character. We were able to give everything until the end, it was like ping-pong and we were wondering how we managed not to score. But I’m proud of the team because we didn’t stop with frustration.»
Comments collected at a press conference
