PSG's new trio: Messi, Neymar & Mbappe - but can Pochettino make it work?

For Pochettino, there might well be a sense that he deserves something like this. So much of his Tottenham Hotspur tenure was spent with restricted resources, the club’s finances forcing him to squeeze ever more juice out of the players he had rather than shopping for fresh fruits, that the prospect of managing Lionel Messi must be pushing him into an almost dream-like state.

Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe. There have not been many strikeforces like it. One could argue there has never been a strikeforce like it. This truly is the stuff of fantasy for Pochettino and for Paris Saint-Germain, who at the very least will know that the expected arrival of Messi will massively magnify their global brand.

For a club like PSG, a move like this cannot really fail. It is a different matter for Pochettino, however. Expectations are already high in Paris, and they will be even higher if and when Messi’s arrival is confirmed. Messi-Neymar-Mbappe looks astonishingly good on paper, clearly, but Pochettino will pay the price with his job and his reputation if he cannot make it work in reality.

Pochettino’s task is not as easy as some might think. It feels almost sacrilegious to say it, but in recent years it has become increasingly difficult to avoid questioning Messi’s effectiveness at the highest level of the club game (in other words, the Champions League). Since lifting Europe’s most coveted trophy in 2015, he and Barcelona have only once progressed beyond the quarter-final stage of the competition.

A caveat: Barcelona are a mess and their squad-building in the last few years, especially, has been comically haphazard. Messi has been consistently the best player in the world despite this, which says plenty about his own quality, as if any more needed to be said. There has been the odd occasion, though, when Messi has been part of the problem in big European games.

More than ever, top-level European football is a game of systems. The last three winners of the Champions League were Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, Hansi Flick’s Bayern Munich and Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea. All three coaches are German, and all three were leading teams where the collective was far more important than the individual.

Up against these 11-man units, Messi has at times looked like a powerless soloist. Picture him at Anfield in 2019, visibly despairing as Barcelona were overrun by a Liverpool side that featured Divock Origi and Xherdan Shaqiri. Picture him in Lisbon a year ago, when Barcelona were ripped apart by the all-pressing, all-running Bayern. Barcelona lost 8-2 that night, and Messi spent much of the game at walking pace.

In Neymar, Pochettino already has a player who enjoys an on-off relationship with defensive diligence. In 2021, can a team really win the Champions League with two stars who prefer to do their own thing rather than sacrificing themselves for the collective? If Messi and Neymar have freedom, will the other nine players be willing to do their running for them? Would that even be enough? And will Mbappe (if he remains at the club, which seems far from certain) not also consider himself worthy of special treatment?

Messi and Neymar have a strong relationship off the pitch and they have thrived in the same team before. Alongside Luis Suarez, they won the treble with Barcelona in 2015. But Neymar was 23 at the start of that season, still trying to prove himself in the European game. Messi was at the peak of his physical powers. And in Suarez, they had an accomplice who could do the dirty work as well as creating goals for his team-mates. Mbappe is not that player.

There is no doubt that Messi will bring goals, assists and plenty of breathtaking moments to PSG. This, after all, is a man who has scored at least 30 goals in the past 13 campaigns. The likes of Troyes, Metz, Strasbourg and Brest are in for some thrashings in the season to come, and few would bet against PSG regaining the Ligue 1 title.

But the ultimate test will come later in the season, in the spring of 2022, when PSG’s team of individuals will inevitably meet one of Europe’s great collectives. Recent history, and the evolution of the game, suggests that further glory is far from guaranteed for the greatest of them all.