Christophe Galtier Interview - Paris SG TV (Patreon)

Did you prepare in any particular way for the job?

Obviously I worked a lot and also quickly with all my staff on a technical and tactical level to find the best possible system to really highlight the incredible ability of my players to play.

You see smiles in training and players in great shape, is there a Galtier's secret?

The results make there are many smiles. But maybe it's also because there are a lot of smiles, that there are good results, that is very important this group cohesion and the desire to do things together. It is very important that the players, when they arrive here, are really happy to come to work, to meet and exchange, to share every day. I'm very natural. I am very frank with the players by definition, but also by attitude and behaviour. I am often behind them pushing them. I am never in the front line.

Can we make the players progress? And if so, how?

You can always make a player progress, but you have to make them progress on a mental level, on the requirement, on what our job demands, on everything you have to put in the preparation of a session, in the preparation of a match, in the concentration, in the determination. Of course, we can also help them progress in this area, but not on a tactical level. But to insist on what we want to see from the team, on the positioning that the players must have, on this positioning that becomes afterwards movement, obviously there is a lot, a lot of work and there is a lot of work by my technical staff, my analysts, my physical trainers and myself so that some can play for others. And above all, and I insist, to put the ones and the others on their strong points.

What does your work concretely, on a daily basis, with your staff, consist of, coaching Paris SG?

A lot of analysis of the opponents we are going to play and also a lot of analysis and research and development of our Game Model. So that we don't slacken off and believe that things work easily. 

We are always trying to create situations in training, to look for the weakness in the opponent, to reinforce our strong points, to insist on the relationships among the players, the technical relationships, the connections, to limit the number of mistakes that we could make at the beginning of the season. We try to limit more and more to avoid giving our opponents a chance to believe that it is possible because that's part of the job. I insist a lot on the fact that our relationships, the connections among our players, when we are in possession of the ball and the way we have to attack, when we are in possession of the ball and the way we have to attack, the way we have to be more killer, because we have created a lot of chances for relatively few goals in recent matches. 

We have to work on that, but also we work with the medical staff with the performance unit, and with our nutritionist so that the players recover as well as possible considering we have an incredibly busy schedule of games.

You have to juggle between the need to recover and to take care of the players, and at the same time, you have to work. Is it possible to solve this equation?

This year, the schedule is different again because it is very compact. We have very little time to work as a team on the pitch. That's why, with the staff, we spend a lot of time here looking at the video to present the players with something very precise and very short. Because, in terms of concentration, it's very difficult to go from one game to another. So we try to make it short, but really with a lot of quality, to get to the essence of what our match should be on a technical and tactical level, against a very precise and clearly identified opponent.

So we spend a lot of time on this as soon as we can, as soon as we have the green light from our performance unit, physical trainer, medical, every minute is very useful to work collectively on the field, we must take advantage of every moment to be able to work.

You plan on a daily basis or in the longer term? How does the medium and long term vision of the trainings, the sessions, the content, the work go?

There is no planning. There is the reality of what our last game was and quickly correct what didn't work. That is to say, we have fifteen minutes in this session, we have to correct that and on the next session, here we are, we have identified a flaw in such and such place in the opponent. We go on that.

You study the opponents, but is it possible to continue to surprise the opponents when you are so spied on, so scrutinised?

We have to bring variation without changing our game. We have our characteristics, we have our player profiles, we have our way of doing things. But we have to bring some small variations on offensive positions or on the way we play the ball, or on the way we have to play on the flanks. We have to bring variety.