'Mbappé's change of status at PSG is so sudden that it's hard not to see it as the club's desire to retaliate'

Imagine you're the president of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). After seven seasons, a few falling-outs and a lot more flashes of brilliance, your current superstar – who, unlike Neymar and Lionel Messi, has always delivered – announces his expected departure. He has only one wish before leaving: to finish on a high note, say, with a victory in the Champions League you've been chasing in vain for the last 12 years.

In all likelihood, you would swallow your pride and seek to ensure the best possible conditions for the player and the team, to give yourself every chance of achieving the European objective with this striker capable of miracles, and to bring the prodigy's time in Paris to a fitting conclusion, with deserved tributes. But you aren't the president of PSG.

Since announcing that he would not be extending his tenure at PSG, Kylian Mbappé has drastically lost playing time: He was on the bench at Nantes, substituted against Rennes, and most recently, taken off at half-time at Monaco, on Friday. But it is above all his status that has changed within the club. He is no longer an irremovable starter whom the coach hesitates to take off during a match, even to rest him, even when he's not good.

Luis Enrique's authority

The change is so sudden that, despite the club's arguments that it is the "choice of coach," it's hard not to see it as a desire to retaliate. The message, which is theoretically self-evident (no player is bigger than the club), appears to have been applied very late, given how many times it has been denied so many times before. Even in the summer of 2023, when, at the end of a power struggle between Mbappé and the club, after he had formally notified his intention not to activate the option allowing him to extend his contract until 2025, PSG chose to reinstate him to the first team.

It's true that Luis Enrique was chosen in the off-season to assume the authority over a star-studded squad that his predecessors lacked, hindering the construction of a top-level style of play. He is well known for having imposed his views, even on Lionel Messi when he was coaching FC Barcelona.

The Spaniard insists on his legitimate desire to prepare for what comes next. But if the post-Mbappé era has begun, it means, in a way, that PSG's season is already over, something the coach suggested when he said he was certain "that the team [would be] better next season, at every level."

"Sooner or later, he won't be playing with us anymore," Enrique said. But perhaps it's a little too soon. His declarations, as abrupt as his method, come a little late, seeing as the Mbappé "problem" is nothing new. Exposing himself to such turmoil just a few days before the second leg of a Champions League round of 16 tie against Real Sociedad is tantamount to scuttling. PSG remains PSG's greatest enemy, and that's why we love them.

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