Paris Saint-Germain beat FC Espaly 2-4 (Espaly/PSG video highlights) this Wednesday at the Stade Marcel Michelin in the round of 16 of the Coupe de France 2024-2025. After the match, journalist Daniel Riolo spoke highly of Parisians Bradley Barcola (22-year-old striker) and Désiré Doué (19-year-old midfielder/attacker).
Riolo “everything he’s been doing for a very long time now is very bad.”
“We can safely say that Barcola is a total loser this Wednesday? And that his ball control and everything he’s been doing for a very long time now is very bad? I’d even go so far as to say that he’s been enjoying himself in small games since the start of the season.
Désiré Doué, who I’ve been praising a lot recently for his initiative and character, showed some worrying things on Wednesday. A guy who’s pretentious against a small team is never a good sign.
Riolo “He thought he was the Neymar of Neymar’s worst moments.”
He was extremely pretentious, He played pretentious. He thought he was the Neymar of Neymar’s worst moments. Like I’m going to dribble past three guys, I’m going to show these kids, these National 3 peasants…
If he has that problem, then he’s not going to be the player I hope he’ll be one day, because I see a lot of qualities in him. But what he showed me on Wednesday, if I’m Luis Enrique, and I’m not, I’ll take it and we’ll have a little humility talk.”
It’s terrible the need to always go for exaggerations and “punchlines” to have the feeling of being listened to, of being right. So much for details, hindsight or analysis.
Barcola sucks at everything, let’s leave the rest aside. Of course he’s underperforming, that’s undeniable. But he also scored and made an assist on Wednesday, which is much better than missing out on everything.
You have to know how to put a little nuance into things to keep an opinion worth listening to (or even giving). It’s also worth pointing out that the player is aware of this difficulty, and has mentioned personal concerns. Except that it was necessary to go for the obvious and be aggressive.
As for Doué, this brings us to the sad part of the analysis. Why is dribbling necessarily a sign of disrespect? He tried things, maybe not always the right ones, but was he really “pretentious” or simply looking for solutions when his team was in trouble? Here we can see why Neymar was so hard to like, not forgetting a yellow card for a dribble.
Whimsical gestures can be useful. There’s also an element of spectacle, which doesn’t hurt in a soccer match. It’s sad to see such anger coming from one of the most listened-to voices in French soccer.
We’d prefer to remember that Doué congratulated his opponents after the match, and that he himself pointed out that he hadn’t been effective enough. But then again, that would probably be adding too much nuance for some.
