This Wednesday, as part of the semi-finals of the 2025 Club World Cup, Paris Saint-Germain took on Real Madrid at New York’s MetLife Stadium. Thibaut Courtois, the 33-year-old Madrid goalkeeper, spoke to DAZN after the 4-0 victory (video highlights PSG/Real Madrid). He spoke of the gap between Paris and his team, who logically have work to do.
Courtois: “They slackened off a bit”.
Complicated match for Real Madrid?
It’s true that Paris are the current European champions and during the season they’ve improved week by week… they’re a team that presses very well, very well, very high up the pitch, they leave space and it’s up to us to find it by playing fast. That’s what we’ve been doing in training, but that’s what we didn’t manage to do at the start of the game. They started well, had two great chances, and then of course we made two individual errors that changed the game.
They were very effective in the first half, pressing hard. We had trouble pressing them, because we were always late and Hakimi was often on his own. We were always a little late. That’s where they hurt us and that’s where the third goal came from. In the second half, they eased off a little and we had a bit more of the ball, but we didn’t manage to create many more chances.
Courtois: “We saw straight away the mistakes and what we need to improve.”
What’s the difference with Ancelotti and changing the system so quickly?
Naturally, we play differently, we want to press higher up and he wants us to be better placed on the pitch. He also wants us to be better positioned on the pitch, so that there are always occupied areas. We’ve played some good games, but it’s not easy to change straight away, and against a great team we saw straight away the mistakes and what we need to improve.
We saw the level we have to expect, and with PSG the best team in the world on the pitch. That’s where we need to improve and we need to analyse with the coach and see what we can do better. We know we have to improve, we’ve only had 3 weeks and it’s hard to change everything in such a short space of time.
