Christophe Galtier: "We want to get things done together" | OneFootball

With the majority of his players currently on international duty, Paris Saint-Germain manager Christophe Galtier stopped by the PSG TV studio for an exclusive interview, looking back over his side’s start to the season, his day-to-day work with the players and his new environment here in Paris.

Coach, is managing Paris Saint-Germain its very own kind of job?

'It's a coaching job on the pitch, of course, as well as off it, with the bonus of getting to work with top-level, world-class players. Then, there's everything that's generated when you work for Paris Saint-Germain, like the exposure for the club, for the players and also for my role. So, you need to be as natural as possible in your daily management of the players, making sure that everything that gets said remains as confidential as possible because everything is heavily amplified here. With that media exposure, I've noticed that for Paris Saint-Germain, the glass is always half-empty; it's never half-full. You also need to be very careful and not let criticism get to you.'

HOW DID YOU PREPARE FOR THIS ROLE? DID YOU STUDY THE PLAYERS OR WATCH ANY GAMES?

'As soon as contact was established and things started becoming clearer and clearer, I did a lot of work on Paris Saint-Germain's previous season and the ones before it. Given that I was managing in Ligue 1, I already had a lot of analysis on the club and on the team. So, of course, I did a lot of work in a very short space of time, together with my coaching staff, both technically and tactically, in order to work out the characteristics of the players who were going to stay and to work out the best way of organising things to highlight this team's incredible ability.'

you've made the best start for a new manager in the club's history, and we can see smiles on faces in training and fully fit players. is there a 'galtier secret'?

'That's news to me! I wasn't aware of that stat, but I do honestly think that we've made a good start. The fact that there are smiles on faces... Our results mean that there are a lot of smiles on faces, but the opposite could also be true: a lot of smiles make for good results! That cohesion within the squad is really important, and we want to get things done together. It's really important that when the players turn up to the training ground, they feel really happy to come into work, to see each other, to talk to each other and to share each day with each other. Is there a particular recipe? No. I'm very natural, very frank with the players and very direct. That's all.'

HOW DO YOU IMPROVE WORLD-CLASS PLAYERS?

'You can always improve a player, especially mentally. Technically speaking, my players are at an extraordinary level, but I need to improve them mentally, in terms of what their job requires of them and what we need to put into preparing for sessions and matches, as well as in terms of concentration and determination. It's not about improving them tactically but rather emphasising what we want to see from the team and emphasising the positioning that the players should have, which then becomes movement. Obviously, it's a lot of work. When you work for Paris Saint-Germain, people forget that. My technical staff, my analysts, my fitness coaches and I put in a lot of hard work to ensure that the players can play for each other and, above all, to bring out each player's strengths. That's where the hard work is done.'

WHAT GOES INTO YOUR DAILY WORK WITH YOUR backroom staff?

'It's a lot of analysis on our future opponents and also a lot of research and development regarding our style of play so that we don't get complacent and think that things will work out easily. We're always looking to create situations in training, to find a way through our opponents, to make our strong points even stronger, to focus on our relationships with each other, our technical relationships and connections, and also to put certain things right. We've got weaknesses like any other team, so we're trying to limit the number of mistakes that we're making early on in the season. We're trying to limit those more and more in order to give our opponents less of a chance to think that they can beat us, but I focus a lot on our relationships and our connections with each other given that our play is possession-based, as well as on how we need to attack and what we need to have right now, which is more of a killer instinct. We've created a lot of chances but not scored many goals in our last few games. With the medical staff, the performance department and our nutritionist, we also focus on helping the players to recover in the best possible way because our games are coming thick and fast.'

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