Paris Saint-Germain is dealing with main harm issues this night in opposition to FC Barcelona. With Ousmane DembĂ©lĂ©, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, and DĂ©sirĂ© DouĂ© all out, three of the staffâs 4 finest attacking gamers are lacking. That makes issues fairly difficult for Luis Enrique when planning his beginning eleven. And but, a teenager is more likely to be most well-liked over an costly star.
It’s anticipated that PSGâs coach will as soon as once more, as he did on the opening matchday in opposition to Atalanta Bergamo, depend on the simply 19-year-old Senny Mayulu to guide the assault in opposition to Barcelona, as a substitute of Gonçalo Ramos, who value round 65 million euros only a 12 months and a half in the past. However who is that this 19-year-old who’s pushing the Portuguese star to the bench in such an vital Champions League conflict in opposition to Barça?
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Mayulu joined PSGâs youth academy in the summertime of 2018 from the AcadĂ©mie de Soccer d’Epinay at simply twelve years outdated, and eventually made the leap to the skilled squad in January 2024. He’s thought-about certainly one of Parisâs most promising skills, although he lengthy stood within the shadow of the equally younger Warren ZaĂŻre-Emery. It was solely within the final Ligue 1 season that Mayulu had his breakthrough, making 20 appearances and recording 4 objective contributionsâa strong debut season. Since then, he has even overshadowed ZaĂŻre-Emery as PSGâs most promising homegrown expertise.
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Mayulu stands 1.83 meters tall, is comparatively slim, and thus has the right construct for a striker. However the truth is, he’s a skilled midfielder. Since this 12 monthsâs Membership World Cup, coach Enrique has repeatedly performed him as a quantity 9, retraining him for a way more attacking position than the younger Frenchman was used to. However the swap paid off immediately on the Membership World Cup: On the opening matchday in opposition to AtlĂ©tico Madrid, Enrique introduced Mayulu on ten minutes earlier than the tip, and simply moments later, the brand new striker scored PSGâs short-term 3-0 objective.
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And so it occurred that the expertise was even most well-liked within the beginning eleven on the primary Champions League matchday over the normally first-choice, big-money striker Ramos. Within the press convention after the CL match, Enrique defined his choice to start out Mayulu forward of Ramos as follows: âWe thought that, given Atalantaâs excessive urgent, it could be higher to make use of a striker like Mayuluâa really cellular participant with many qualities, who can run in behind the protection, obtain the ball at his toes, and create a numerical benefit.â
What’s the motive for Enriqueâs sudden obsession along with his new striker Mayulu? The PSG coach has a smooth spot for quantity nines who can even drop again into midfield. One of the best instance of that is DembĂ©lĂ©âs position final season. On this system, a participant like Ramos, who’s extra of a traditional penalty-box strikerâmuch less technically expert and slower than Mayuluâtends to fall by the wayside.
So now the teenager will very doubtless get to start out from the start in opposition to Barcelona as properly. Maybe right this moment would be the day he scores his first objective within the new Champions League season. Within the 4-0 house win over Atalanta Bergamo, the 19-year-old was nonetheless left empty-handed.
Even in final seasonâs Champions League marketing campaign, the younger Frenchman was in a position to showcase his expertise. He topped himself because the third-youngest remaining goalscorer within the matchâs historical past along with his objective to make it 5-0 within the remaining in opposition to Inter Milan.
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He’s now anticipated to construct on that, and right this momentâs match exhibits that Mayulu is certainly getting his probabilities behind Dembele & Co.âeven on the expense of costly stars like Gonçalo Ramos.
This text was translated into English by Synthetic Intelligence.
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