Atlanta (AFP) – Paris Saint-Germain coach Luis Enrique said Friday his team will keep adapting and improving to pursue future success, and if they fail to do so, they would be “dead.” The European champions face German giants Bayern Munich on Saturday in the Club World Cup quarter-finals in Atlanta, and the Spanish coach emphasized that they will not keep relying on the same system.
PSG played an entertaining attacking style with three forwards on their way to Champions League glory, but Luis Enrique acknowledged that one day they would need to diverge. “We will change it because teams adapt — in football, there is nothing magical,” Luis Enrique told reporters. “When you overcome the press, your opponent adapts; when you create superiority in an area, your opponent adapts. There is no magic formula.”
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“There is no coach who has a system or a move, and that’s it; that’s the difficulty of modern football. All coaches are prepared, and all players are better physically and technically than ever. So you adapt, you improvise, and you become unpredictable for your opponent, or you are dead,” he added.
Luis Enrique stressed that playing the same way that led PSG to a first treble this season would not suffice going forward. “It’s not enough to do what we’ve done this past season in the next; we have to change, we have to improve things,” he stated.
Bayern Munich beat PSG 1-0 in November in the Champions League group stage, but the French side found their stride and went on to triumph in the competition for the first time. “We have a little bit of revenge to take; we know they’re a tough team, but we’re much stronger than in November,” said Ousmane Dembele, who was sent off in Munich.
“A lot has changed — the players have clearly raised their level, I’ve raised my level too, and we have a lot of confidence. We know what we need to do on the field; we can beat any team.” The 28-year-old is a leading Ballon d’Or contender after a superb campaign, although he has only made a brief cameo as a substitute in the Club World Cup thus far.
Dembele suffered a quadriceps injury during the Nations League at the start of June and came on in PSG’s 4-0 romp against Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami. The forward stated he is now “100 percent” fit but noted it is up to Luis Enrique whether he starts against Bayern at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. “It’s not the time to give information to my opponent — we’ll see tomorrow,” said Luis Enrique.
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