This Tuesday at 8:45pm (CET), Paris Saint-Germain (1st) take on Nantes (14th) at the Stade de la Beaujoire in a late match on Matchday 29 of Ligue 1 2024-2025. In a press conference, Nantes coach Antoine Kombouaré spoke about the match and his side’s opponents.
Kombouaré “We’re building ourselves up to think it’s playable”
“If we think it’s mission impossible, there’s no point playing the game. That’s what I told my players after the defeat by Rennes. We’re building ourselves up to think it’s playable. We’re going to face one of the best teams in Europe, and there’s a huge amount of motivation in the whole squad, because we need points to stay in Ligue 1. It’s vital for us. We want to achieve the feat.
Kombouaré “Collectively, PSG are very strong in all areas of the game”
Collectively, PSG are very strong in all areas of the game. They tire you out, they wear you down. As soon as they lose the ball, they attack you on the counter-pressure, giving you no time to breathe. You have to be ready to suffer together, to run a lot, to defend a lot, to provoke success by being effective on the pitch.
Kombouaré “There’s no more arrogance”
Could PSG relax?
Maybe they’ll have their heads a bit turned by Arsenal, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. We saw it again against Le Havre: even with a reshuffled team, they’re still performing very well. It’s not the game that makes people buy into this new version of PSG, it’s the mentality and the image it conveys. There’s no longer any arrogance, no longer any emphasis on one player over another. The star is the team.
Kombouaré loves playing against his former club. What’s more, this season, there’s the desire to get a good result to continue improving in the standings, but there’s also the desire to be the first team to knock PSG off their perch.
We’ve seen that PSG often have a margin. There could be a draw, but the Parisian lead in the game is such that we’ll need a great Nantes team. Luis Enrique is working hard to give his team plenty of confidence, and is not skimping on the importance of not dropping a single match. This match comes at a busy time for PSG, who are inevitably starting to think about Arsenal.
But let’s face it, the most important thing right now is to win the French Cup and reach the semi-finals of the Champions League. The unbeaten record and the away record are important, but above all they are there to silence any form of complacency.
